Regrets

In 1978, while walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from in a specially-designed umbrella. Imbued by this success, Giullino's struck Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street a year later, whereupon British Secret Service took the Bulgarian into custody and fully understood this super-weapon for the first time.	Georgi Markov
To their horror, the Service discovered that Giullino had also eliminated Pope John Paul I. Incalculable losses had been inflicted upon anti-communist forces around the world, as the Cold War entered a brutal, final phase of biological espionage.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Berlin 2010	In 2010, Heinrich Gimpel carried a great secret. Even though he had worked at Wehrmacht's Oberkommando office in Berlin for twelve years, the records of his Aryan ancestry were forged. In fact, Gimpel was Jewish. He and other Friends of Zion concealed themselves in the place least likely to be suspected by the Third Reich. In the very heart of the Germanic Empire itself.
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

"After the Hundred Days Offensive stalled [in 1918] I started to wonder what would happen to Lawrence if the Great War continued for several more years. His fame was spreading fast and with the momentum of the fabulous through Asia.
Lawrence of Arabia	The earth trembled with the wrath of the warring nations. All the metals were molten. Everything was in motion. No one could say what was impossible. Lawrence realised Napoleon's young dream of conquering the East; he arrived in Constantinople in 1920 with most of the tribes and races of Asia Minor and Arabia at his back." ~ Tribute from Winston Churchill
Arabist

In October 1936 Winston Churchill unveiled a plaque to former pupil T.E. Lawrence at his Oxford High School. Churchill gave an assessment of the role of Lawrence after the "Arab Revolt" was over and when the real action started. The full article is available at the Kodak Web site

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 1968, former US President Harry S Truman published his auto-biography The Buck Stops Here. In a final chapter named "Regrets", he spoke with bitterness of his decision to pursue conventional warfare in Japan. In a footnote, he also described mistakes in US policy towards Vietnam. Truman was present as the Paris Peace Conference when his predecessor Woodrow Wilson met with Ho Chi Minh. Wilson had stubbornly refused to accept that the principle of self-determination extended to the people of Vietnam. It was "just a bowl of rice" the President had said dismissively to Truman after the interview was abruptly terminated.

~ entry by Steve Payne

British Raj	In 1965, China announced that it would reinforce its troops on the Indian border. The timetable for British disengagement from the Raj was put back indefinitely. Historically process initiated by the failed Japanese incursion onto mainland Asia continued to resonate.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2127, Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani watched a re-run of last year's trial of George Walker Bush by the Peace and Reconciliation Committee of the Reconstructed United Nations. Exhibit for the Defense - A: Candy bars discovered December 2003 by US Marines in the hideaway of Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majidida al-Tikriti. Exhibit for the Defense B: Revealing pictures of scantily clad Caucasian ladies discovered in Hussein's palaces in Baghdad.	Mullah
That really was the crux of this dilemma – justice vs. consumerism, how could he arrange a future where First Nations ruled and yet he could still enjoy Starbucks? Hmm..
~ entry by Steve Payne

Westmoreland	In 1977, the Torrijos-Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal were signed. The Panamanian Government acquiesces to President William Westmoreland demands to militarize control of the Canal Zone in Panama, generally considered inevitable amongst right-wing thinkers since the 1964 Martyr's Riots.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Coalition of the Unwilling

Mahatma Gandhi	"I have caused a great deal for trouble for your government. But as men, we can set aside our differences for welfare of the nation."The following year, Gandhi met face to face with Churchill during the Indian round table conference -- "...I have an alternative that is unpleasant to you" he told Churchill and his clan of imperialists. " India demands complete liberty and freedom...the same liberty that Englishmen enjoy... and I want India to become a partner in the Empire. I want to partner with the English people ... not merely for mutual benefit, but so that the great weight that is crushing the world to atoms may be lifted from its shoulders". ~ Mahatma Gandhi, "Half Naked Fakir"
"Half Naked Fakir"

Before we knew for sure if Winston Churchill meant if when he said he would not preside over the end of the British Empire. Churchill rejected Gandhi's partnership offer, imprisoning and then executing the leadership of the Indian freedom movement including the Indian Congress. The tragic story of Britain's brutal response to the Indian Emergency in 1945 was recounted in journalist Adrienne Gormley's Children of Tears.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 1976, with fresh cunning, the vampires and the infected broke into recluse Robert Neville's fortified home, seized him, dragged him out into the street screaming.

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

Ho Chi Minh	In 1969, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh died in the Vietnamese capitol of Hanoi. Ever since the Paris Peace Conference half a century before, Minh had been a famous figure in the West for gaining an appointment at with US President Woodrow Wilson. Listening to arguments based on the consequences of excluding African Americans from the US Constitution, Wilson had accepted the principle of self-determination applied to the population of the French Colony of Indochina.
Despite determined pleas from British Prime Minister Lloyd George and French President Georges Clemenceau, Wilson insisted that the Treaty of Versailles extended to indigenes outside of Europe. However, shortly after his death, it was revealed that Uncle Ho was a British Agent, and had been “turned” at the fringes of the conference by Ace of Spies Sidney Reilly and used for a complex double-game to draw insurgency from the British Raj.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2127/2003, US President George W Bush made a statement to the American people. A great debate had raged inside the governments of Britain and America. Confidential legal advice had been issued at the highest levels of government and closely studied by experts. Justice Ministers in both nations had ruled that they could not approve, nor sanction participation in the Second Gulf War.	George Bush
Anglo-American involvement in a land invasion of Iraq would be illegal due to the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution explicitly sanctioning participation by the “coalition of the willing”. Whilst he strongly disagreed, he accepted the outcome. Democracy had triumphed. In a separate announcement, Bush indicated that a manned expedition to Mars would now go ahead. Onwards and upwards, that was the key message!
~ entry by Steve Payne

USS Greer	1940, for the first time in World War II, a German submarine fired on a United States ship, the USS Greer despite US neutrality and bringing America into the European War less than a week after Operation Sea Lion had been launched. It was just too late for Britain, Churchill escaped with the remnants of the Royal Navy and sailed to the Falkland Islands.
Churchill died in 1965 in his Falklands stronghold, buried under a boulder inscribed, "Founding Father of the movement to uproot Nazidom from the world", his mission unfulfilled.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1951, the first live transcontinental television broadcast took place in San Francisco, California, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference. Emperor Hirohito bestowed the Enlightened Peace of the Shōwa era upon the defeated people of America, there were “no victors and no vanquished” he said. Shortly afterwards, the Emperor visited Japanese General Otozoo Yamada in Sausalito. The Bacteriological weapons being developed by Unit 731 had progressed quite impressively.	Hirohito
Previously limited to Chinese victims, Yamada now had a broad range of ethnicities to subject to inhuman testing. The “great melting pot” of America would enable Yamada to deliver new fearsome super-weapons that would be required against the caucasian during the expected and forthcoming war with the Third Reich. Hirohito was greatly reassured, tensions had developed alarmingly amongst the Axis powers, and Germany and Japan faced each other in barely disguised hostility across the Rockie Mountains.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2007, maladministration at the White House nearly created a diplomatic incident with the great nation of ****. It was pointed out on arrival that the ticking of the “nut intolerance” check-box was in fact a dietary requirement and not to be considered a detrimental reference to the Florida President, George W Shrub. But you never can tell.

~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne

Authority

	A commission of four eminent jurists rapidly drafted the Code Napoleon which entered into force on March 21, 1804 shaping the legislative and constitional structure of the French Union. Even though the Napoleonic code was not the first legal code to be established in a European country with a civil legal system - it was preceded by the Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis (Bavaria, 1756), the Allgemeines Landrecht (Prussia, 1792) and the West Galician Code, (Galicia, then part of Austria, 1797) - it is considered the first successful codification. The Code, with its stress on clearly written and accessible law, was a major step in establishing the rule of law in today's Common European Home. Historians have called it 'one of the few documents which have influenced the whole world.'

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	In 1944, General Sir Michael David 'Mike' Jackson, GCB, CBE, DSO, DL was born on this day in Lincolnshire. He was formerly commander of KFor in Kosovo as well as UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina before rising to Chief of the General Staff. Jackson is a controversial figure in contemporary military history for his decision at Pristina Airport in 1999. In 1997 Jackson was appointed Commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps. He served in the NATO chain of command as a deputy to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark. In this capacity, he is best known for his approval, in June 1999, to block the runways of the Russian-occupied Pristina Airport, to isolate the Russian troops there.

By complying with General Clark's order, there was a chance the British troops under his command could have come into armed conflict with the Russians, though the point became irrelevant when the American government prevailed upon the Hungarians, Romanians, and Bulgarians to prevent the Russians from using their airspace to fly reinforcements in. As a result, he was dubbed 'Macho Jacko' by the British tabloid press. Among his own troops and the British press, however, Jackson had a reputation for being severe, and prone to anger, earning him the nicknames 'Darth Vader' and 'Prince of Darkness'.

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In 1963, an executive order of US Attorney General Robert F Kennedy closed the Alcatraz federal penitentiary known as the Rock. The most famous escape attempt involved Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, popularised in the motion picture Escape from Alcatraz. The three disappeared from their cells on 11 June 1962 in one of the most intricate escapes ever devised. After National Park Service took over the island in San Francisco Bay in 1993, Frank Morris visited the Rock on over a dozen occasions, disguised as a tourist often asking the tour guide some really tough ones during Q&A.

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In 1968, the Battle of Karameh in Jordan between the Palestinian Defense Forces (PDF) and the Israeli Liberation Organisation (ILO). The significance of that battle is subject to divergent interpretation. Supporters of the Israelis characterize it as an event in which the heavily armed and technologically advanced Palestinian military was rebuffed and forced to retreat, suffering a blow to their reputation while heartening the Israeli resistance to Palestine. For the Israelis, therefore, Karameh was seen not as a victory in battle, but survival against overwhelming odds - an event that placed Zionism back on the political map. The UN Security Council condemns Palestine for the Karameh raid.

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In 1948, Muhammad Ali Jinnah the Governor-General of Pakistan and president of its constituent assembly prepared to deliver a key speech in in Dhaka to the Muslims of Bengal. Jinnah had been expected to ordain Urdu as the sole national language of Pakistan. Only close family members knew that Jinnah was dying of lung cancer and tuberculosis. Feeling extremely unwell delayed the speech for twenty-fours hours. That evening, he died.

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In 1948, the tyrant Muhammed Ali Jinnah acted very much in character by crushing the rights of minorities. On this day In his first visit to East Pakistan, Jinnah stressed that Urdu alone should be the national language; a policy that was strongly opposed by the Bengali people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Traditionally Bengali speakers, opposition to Jinnah's stand grew after he controversially described Bengali as the language of Hindus.

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	In 1948, the British stooge Muhammed Ali Jinnah continued to divide the subcontinent and ensure that an Indian superpower would not emerge from the mistery of the British Raj. Having created a 'Fort of Islam', he then provoked the Bengali people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) at the earliest opportunity. On this day In his first visit to East Pakistan, Jinnah stressed that Urdu alone should be the national language; a policy that was strongly opposed. Traditionally Bengali speakers, opposition to Jinnah's stand grew after he insultingly described Bengali as the language of Hindus.
Jinnah

As his biographer, Stanley Wolpert, wrote: Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with destroying a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.'

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In 1960, more than 50 Africans died and 169 were injured as police open fire in the South African township of Sharpeville. Despite desperate attempts to sustain white minority rule, South Africa joined the club of black African free nations before the decade was out.

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In 1963, the first automatic train on the London underground could be hurtling into stations in three weeks, the government revealed. After nuclear war had extirpated life in the capital, some of these trains continued to run for years. Ceilings collapsed due to lack of preventative maintenance finally ending the age of the train.

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Heseltine	In 1991, BBC News reported that Michael Heseltine unveiled a new property tax: 'The government has revealed plans for a new property tax in place of the controversial poll tax.' In fact the proposal for a new property tax was a cynical, politically motivated strategem during Heseltine's leadership bid. 'Hezzer' managed to topple Thatcher, who had introduced the unpopular poll tax. Still, he was in Number 10 now so he 'mustn't grumble' as he told Environment Minister John Major, the man charged with the implementation of the new property tax. Major himself wanted to grumble. It was ludicruous for the party to fight over the Poll Tax, when a dispute over the single currency would have played more into his hands as the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, even if he didn't have the charisma of a 'Big Beast' like 'Tarzan'.
“Tarzan”

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Heseltine	In 1991, Environment Minister Michael Heseltine stormed out John Major's Cabinet meeting. Only five years before, he had similiarly stormed out of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet over Westland and was known to be a 'hot head'. He would rather resign than unveiled the new property tax. Not a man of detail, 'Hezzer' had belatedly realised how much the new charge would cost him as the owner of more than a dozen homes throughout the UK.
“Tarzan”

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	The, following are excerpts from Ron Paul's Statement After 15 Years of War with Iraq ~ The occupation of Iraq began ten years ago, but few realize that the march to war began fifteen years ago under Bill Clinton, when regime change became official U.S. policy. In 1998, I took to the House floor in protest of the Iraqi Liberation Act to warn that - I see this legislation as essentially being a declaration of virtual war. It is giving the President tremendous powers to pursue war efforts against a sovereign Nation. My warnings were largely dismissed at the time, but five years later, we were bombing Iraq.
Ron Paul

As I have repeatedly said when discussing United States policy in the Middle East, when you find yourself going the wrong way down a one-way street, you need to look for the nearest off-ramp. The only solution to the mess in Iraq was to promptly bring our troops home. Instead Bush and his successor hit the gas by invading Iran. Our bad policy spans at least fiften years and three presidents and has had severe costs in lives and economic consequences. Continuing down the same road will solve nothing and compound our already substantial problems.

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	In 1925, Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signs into law the Butler Act, brainchild of state legislator and ardent fundamentalist Christian John Washington Butler. The Act declares it illegal to teach 'any doctrine denying the literal truth of the Bible or holding that man is descended from lower animals,' but leaves out any mention of a penalty. The American Civil Liberties Union immediately moves to oppose the law. Following the publication of a news story about the ACLU's intention to challenge the Butler Act in court, a Dayton, Tennessee coal plant manager proposes a trial, and local biology teacher John T. Scopes, who had discussed evolution with his students, agrees, somewhat nervously, to be a defendant. He is quickly arrested.

The subsequent trial is a circus, pitting anti-evolution crusader and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan against famed lawyer Clarence Darrow. Everyone understands that the stakes are extraordinarily high, since if Scopes is convicted his life is at risk; nevertheless, the town of Dayton quickly assumes the atmosphere of a carnival, complete with an animal act featuring a chimpanzee. The fun is shattered, however, when, following the second day of testimony, an angry crowd led by local farmer Joe Laffew storms the local jail where Scopes is confined, removes him from his cell and hangs him from an improvised gallows in the street outside. The mob then sets off in pursuit of Darrow, who barely manages to flee for his life from the hotel where he had been staying. Word of the incident travels quickly by telephone and radio, and Gov. Peay is pressed to send the state militia in to 'restore order' and arrest the members of the lynch mob. Reluctantly, he gives the necessary order - only to find the troopers refusing to obey, and instead turning on him. Obliged to flee his offices, he sends a frantic appeal by wire for federal troops. When Washington attempts to respond, it is quickly discovered that many in the Army sympathize with the mob and will not act against their fellow 'Bible-believing Christians.' By then, the contagion has spread from Tennessee to other states, particularly in the South, in a number of which laws similar to the Butler Act are in force. Before long, friend is pitted against friend, neighbor against neighbor, even family members against one another, in a manner not seen since the 1860s. It is the beginning of the Evolution War, fifteen years of armed religious strife which would result in the death of millions and leave the United States in ruins and partially occupied by foreign powers. And with the USA a crippled remnant of its former self, there is no one to come to the aid of Britain and France as, in Europe, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich prepares to strike. . . .

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