Visions

Jesus	In 2005, the Ghost Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a wonderful vision of the far future. In Central Texas Ebeneezer Scrooge witnesses the unbounded joy of the man RAT and his CAT at the arrival of Little CAT. RAT tells Scrooge that something was missing in this harsh world, but now it is finally fulfilled. Scrooge says he understands, he really does.
Is Love

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In 4548, the Theater of the Celestial opened in the nominally-Oueztecan controlled land of the Pomo people, in the city of Huitotanango. The great spectacle of Chinese theater soon developed a following on the continent, and theaters were opening up across Ouezteca.

In 1912, the Nouvelle Revue Francaise rejects A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, an abysmally awful novel by Marcel Proust. He published the work himself in 1913, but after it met with little success, he committed suicide in his small apartment in Paris, France. The work has since been viewed with a less harsh eye, but it has still never garnered much critical acclaim.

In 1942, comedian Leslie Hope entertained U.S. troops stationed in Alaska. Although the audience loved him, Hope felt that comedy in the middle of a war was inappropriate, and never performed for soldiers again.

In 1944, Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower decorates young Private Eddie Slovik with a Purple Heart and recommends him for a Medal of Honor. Slovik, a young thief in civilian life, had been on the verge of desertion when his unit was attacked in France; he fought off thirty Germans single-handedly, saving the barracks where his men were stationed.

In 1956, BBC News Reported Jubilation as allied troops leave Suez. Crowds of Egyptians have poured onto the streets of Port Said to celebrate the withdrawal of American, British and French forces from Egyptian soil. Yesterday's troop departure follows pressure from the Soviet Union to escalte the armed occupation of the region which followed President Abdel Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal. The demonstrations reached a peak this afternoon when a small detachment of the Egyptian Army marched into Port Said greeted by well-wishers waving the national flag and pictures of President Abdel Nasser. Shouting "Long Live Nasser" and "Down with [President] Thurmond [British prime minister] Eden and [French PM] Mollet", demonstrators burned American, British and French flags. King Hussein of Jordan has sent a message to President Nasser praising the "heroism" of the people of Port Said.

In 1972, ten thousand people are feared dead after a two-hour earthquake rips through the Nicaraguan capital, Managua. Fifty years after the Tunguska Impact Event, the embedded singularity was still creating havoc for the Earth's tectonic plates.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day British Socialist Harold Wilson made a broadcast from the independent offshore radio transmitter on Radio Caroline. He welcomed the statement from US President James Earl Carter called for progressive change in Fascist Europe following the assassination of General Franco, who was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid three days before.

Wilson described Franco as a monster who had destroyed socialism and anarchy in its infancy during the Spanish Civil War. Reference was made to the censored work of journalist Eric Arthur Blair who had said - 'We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary'. That revolution had been betrayed, said Wilson shortly before the transmission ended abruptly.

Violent End

In 1974, British Prime Minister Enoch Powell died in hospital after a 2lb bomb was detonated at his home in Victoria, London the previous evening. There are reports the front door is broken, glass smashed and the front room is damaged. The bombing is almost exactly twelve months after the assassination of Spanish Caudillo by a car bomb on 20th December 1973.

A number of independent broadcasts from offshore radio transmitter on Radio Caroline have linked the two events in which prominent Fascist leaders were killed. The political map of Western Europe has undergone rapid change in recent years, as anti-fascists attempt to turn the clock back to 1936. It has been alleged that both assassinations represent many years of hard work in Spain. The Agency's job had been to find a drastic and odd resolution to a political situation reminiscent of a deus ex machina. They wanted to build "the World that Hitler never made". At any cost.

Alive	In 1972, the last survivors were rescued from Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, also known less formally as the Andes flight disaster. The Uruguayan government confirmed reports of cannibalism and was forced the sixteen passengers into a US witness protection program to hide their identity.

In 1948, seven former European leaders sentenced to death by hanging at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo. Amongst them are Major General Orde Charles Wingate, DSO and Lord Louis Mountbatten. During the trial, the two had written Scapegoats of the Empire of the Sun. In a remarkable episode, the book was smuggled out of Japan, taken to Port Stanley in the Falklands Islands for the safe-keeping of the Head of the British Government in Exile, Winston Churchill.

Churchill

Kerry

In 2008, outgoing US President John Edwards pardons his former boss, John Kerry for the Swift Boat scandals that forced Kerry's subsequent resignation. In particular, the damning statements by former US Marine Jack Smith that Kerry had thrown someone else's medals at the front steps of the U.S. Capital on April 22 1971.

In 1948, as seven European leaders are sentenced to death by hanging at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East were executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, Winston Churchill sympathised by confessing his ignorance of the weakness British Imperial defences, saying bitterly: "I did not know. I was not told. I should have asked." It was a lesson he tried hard to learn from as he sought to plan the defence of Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, where he and the remnants of the British Royal Naval had fled to in 1942.

Mountbatten

Accident

John Lennon	In 1969, at Peace City One John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono broadcast Give peace a chance. Four people amongst many had journeyed to the metropolis, rebuilt upon the site of fire-bombed Dresden. Taxi driver Gerhard Müller and his daughter lived but a few miles away. War buddies Bernard V. O'Hare and Kurt Vonnegut travelled from America on Tralfamadorean money, God love it. Lennon invited the four on stage for the corus, philosophically joking that “the accident had”. For Vonnegut, something had been missing in this harsh world. He had suffered from weeping for many years and in his despair had contemplated suicide. Now it was finally fulfilled. And so it goes.
GPAC

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Jesus	In 1986, the Ghost Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a strange vision of the far future. In Africa the emaciated arms of starving children lack the strength to swat the flies buzzing around them in the haze. And that haunting song, Do they know its Christmas?. And yet in this harsh world there's something that was missing in that shopping mall flooded with light. Him.
Is Love

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Infected Cow

In 1997, an independent inquiry into the BSE "disaster" and the devastation it wreaked on British farming has been announced by the government. Agriculture Minister Jack Cunningham said the BSE inquiry would be led by Judge Lord Justice Phillips who has a year to complete the investigation. Describing the BSE crisis, he said: "It has been, literally, a disaster." The inquiry would be far-ranging covering the BSE crisis' origins and the way in which authorities responded to it and the development of "the Rage".

Five years later the disaster was portrayed in the movie 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Christopher Eccleston. The films depicts the breakdown of society following the spread of the "Rage" which rendered people mindlessly violent, focusing upon the struggle of four survivors to cope with the ruination of the life they once knew. A critical and commercial success, the film is widely recognized for images of a deserted London, and was shot almost entirely on digital video. In a radical alternative ending the Agriculture Ministry fails to respond to the crisis.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day US President James Earl Carter called for progressive change in Fascist Europe following the assassination of General Franco, who was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid two days before. In the United States, it was unthinkable that the Head of State could be removed by the act of a violent few said the Georgia Giant. It was now time for the Plot Against America to end and leaders to work with Carter to build “the World that Hitler never made”.

The Central Intelligence Agency was delighted with the outcome, which represented twenty years work in Spain. Carter had the luxury of talking about freedom, the Agency's job had been to find a drastic and odd resolution to a political situation reminiscent of a deus ex machina.

Danville

In 1999, whilst driving in Center Lovell, Maine, agent of the random Bryan Smith was distracted by an unrestrained Rottweiler named Bullet, moving in the back of his vehicle, a 1985 Dodge Caravan. The author Stephen King was walking on the right shoulder of Route 5. Agent of the purpose, Patrick Danville had been sent because King must not die. Before the author could be fatally struck by the Dodge, Danville grabbed King and they both landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5.

In 1992, British Home Secretary Norman Lamont announced “Today has been an extremely difficult and turbulent day. Massive refugee flows continue to threaten the Channel Tunnel opening at Coquelles near Calais in northern France. The Government has concluded that Britain's best interest is served by sealing the Tunnel whilst emergency measures can be implemented on the continent of Europe.”

Norman Lamont

Rice

In 2009, in a presidential broadcast Condoleeza Rice speaks to the nation with her proposals for solving the problem of litter. Since the advent of mass production and consumerism in the 1950s, she explains, packaging and waste have entered American society. As civil society has lost its value, personal responsibility had declined partly due to a reaction to authority for sending so many American boys to their deaths in foreign wars. During 2010, Rice would bring forward legislation that would place a retrospective burden on producers to collect litter.

In 2004, former US Marine Jack Smith made damning allegations regarding President-elect John Forbes Kerry's actions outside the Senate committee at the April 22, 1971 following his famous “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” speech. Smith recollects that Kerry and other veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at the front steps of the U.S. Capitol. However, Kerry still possesses his medals in 2005 and Smith explains this apparent anomaly by revealing that Kerry threw someone else's medals in act of showmanship. Smith and Kerry – he alleges - had purchased the medals at a market sale in Greenwich Village, New York in December 1970. Kerry agrees to step down in favour of Vice President-elect John Edwards, which many regarded as an appropriate reversal of a travesty of justice.

Kerry

In 1944, German troops accept the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium as the disastrous Battle of the Bulge reaches a decision.

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In 1853, Theodore Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch were married in Roswell, New Mexico. The happy couple disappeared for a week, and when they returned, Martha was pregnant with young Theodore, Jr. Teddy had an unhealthy grey sheen to his skin, but managed to overcome this handicap and rise to the presidency of the United States.

In 1912, in honor of the Winter Solstice, Sidney Peters of Manhattan, Kansas, pens the holiday classic Carol of the Hells. Its sweet tones have been heard every winter since: Ring silver bell/ Bring Christmas Hell/ Now gentlemen/ Pay for your sin/ Come quake with fear/ Satan is here/ Satan your lord/ Forever more/ Ring, ding-a-ling/ Evil is king/ Hope, fade away/ Despair today…

In 1971, former Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim is appointed Secretary-Fuehrer of the Eurasian Union, the organization used by the German Reich to organize the governments of their conquered Eurasian nations. Waldheim was appointed by Hitler, himself, and enjoyed the favor of the Fuehrer until Hitler’s death in 1981. Waldheim was ousted the next year.

In 1984, comrade Bernhard Goetz was appointed the People’s Chief of Police for New York City. During Comrade Goetz’s administration, crime in the subways and streets of New York dropped by 12%, although the Socialist Party in the city complained of the comrade’s heavy-handed tactics.

In 2007, Mitt Romney's candidacy of the Presidency of the United States received a huge boost. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King said that he had a very clear recollection of marching with Romney Senior in June 1963. Alex Hayley had given his people a myth to live by. Perhaps now Romney could deliver the dream.

Impact

Jesus	In 2007, the Ghost Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a strange vision of the far future. Eugene Cratchit Facebooks an annual megablurb of a family update, "In May we hired a beachfront in Malibu, Timmo got that iPhone he wanted..Awesome!" Yet something is missing in this future. Or someone. Despite the wild extravagance there's not nearly so much joy as at the 1843 Cratchit family christmas. If these descendants thought they were having a nice day, they sure were lieing to themselves.
Is Love

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In 1945, on this day US Army General George Smith Patton Jr. narrowly avoided serious injury in a road accident at Neckarstadt, (Käfertal), in the country outside Mannheim. At 11:45 a 2½ ton truck driven by T/5 Robert L. Thompson appeared out of the haze and made a left-hand turn towards a side road. The Cadillac smashed into the truck. His chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. "Hap" Gay, was thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. The driver PFC Horace Woodring and Patton were uninjured. Paralyzed from the neck down, General Gay died of an embolism on December 21, 1945 at the military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany with his wife present.

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In 1970, Elvis Presley became a narcotics officer for the FBI, under the direct order of Richard Nixon. With Presley’s help, most of the musical talent of the 60’s was put into prison on drug charges.

In 1958, Charles de Gaulle was elected President for life by an unstable and frightened French nation. Revolt in the Algerian colony led the French down the road of dictatorship, which de Gaulle followed with relish. Under his unquestioned reign, he forged closer ties with fellow dictator Franco of Spain, massacred workers and students who protested against his policies, and made France the world’s second-greatest nuclear power. The Second Napoleon, as he was known, was finally halted by death in 1970.

In 1945, private Kurt Vonnegut died of gangrene that had started in his mangled feet. After his capture on December 14th, German soldier has swapped his boots for clogs and force marched him and the “three musketeers” of the 106th Infantry Division into Germany's interior.

In 1945, on this day U.S. Army general George Smith Patton Jr. Died and entered Valhalla. Old Blood and Guts was a well-respected disciplinarian after the Slapping Incident, and he was planning to launch a political career until Eisenhower had him assassinated.

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In 1614, Tommasso Caccini, a priest of Florence, spoke with Galileo Galilee for several hours to discuss the scientist’s theory that the earth circled the sun, and not the other way around. After this meeting, Caccini left the priesthood and devoted his life to spreading the word of science. He was executed for heresy in 1616.

In 1977, the Young people from the Norwich Choir spoke of their admiration for Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher returned forty-eight hours after a Christmas reception at Number 10 Downing Street. “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony” was one of the key messages they had taken on board. Shortly after the party, Thatcher had returned to her office and worked through the night on stockpile forecasts for primary resources oil and coal. Within the next twelve months, she would break the back of the British Trade Union movement for sure, provoking a Miner's Strike this time.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day mixed tributes were paid to the Spanish Caudillo, General Franco, who was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid the day before. Franco's legacy is controversial. While some Spaniards remember him as a strong leader who pacified and stabilized Spain, others remember him as a harsh dictator. Issues surrounding his controversial legacy include whether the Second Spanish Republic he overthrew had become an unstable regime, the nature of the relationship between his politics and those of contemporaries Mosley, Hitler and Mussolini, the repressive policies adopted in cultural and regionalist domains, state centralization, the nationalist and corporatist ideology of the Movimiento Nacional, and the execution of thousands of military and political opponents during the civil war and in the early years after.

British Prime Minister Enoch Powell paid tribute to Franco, describing him as a great leader. Franco had united two great nations after five hundred years of conflict. The Armada was now "water under the bridge" he quipped.

Danville

In 2011, Patrick Danville died at twenty-two years old, having saved the lives of two men, one of whom must not die. Danville was saved himself in 1993 by Lois Chasse and Ralph Roberts at High Ridge in the State of Maine. Ralph and Lois had to save the boy's life at any costs, because the man he will save six years later is the author himself, Stephen King...

In 1992, with the Red Army massing along the borders of Western Germany, British Home Secretary Norman Lamont spoke candidly about the refugee crisis developing around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel at Coquelles near Calais in northern France. Controversially, Lamont made reference to Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech from 1968– 'I seem to see the River Thames foaming with much blood.' Who now could say Powell was wrong about the vampire threat from Russia?

Enoch Powell

Rice	In 2009, President Condoleeza Rice labels litter as the third biggest problem in the world today after poverty and climate change. The following day Condi will speak to the nation with her proposals.

In 1979, the Lancaster House Agreement is signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Dr S C Mundawarara. Secret promises are made by the Britain Government to the White settlers regarding the security of their farms. These are underwritten by the South African government, who required a buffer state with Black Africa.

Ian Smith

Lakota Sioux tribals	In 2007, the Reconstructed United Nations recognised the new nation of Lakota. The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, had withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old. They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference. Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said. The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website. The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said. "It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means. The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England. Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said. One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws. "We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference. The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means. Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world. Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website. "Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young. "We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.

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