Shepherds

Jesus	In 2007, the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a strange vision of the far future. Portly parents (and children too!) consume vast quantities of packaged food in a shopping mall flooded with light. Huge amounts of money pass hands. Yet something is missing in this future. Despite the wild extravagance there's not nearly so much joy as at the 1843 Cratchit family christmas. Something is missing. Or rather, someone.
Is Love

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	In 5764 anno mundi, on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar European Jewry celebrated Hanukkah (Hebrew: חנוכה‎, alt. Chanukah or Hanukah). The Festival of Lights commenced an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt. The earliest known celebration of Hanukkah in Europe was the arrival of the Bethlehemite Rabbhi Yeshua Ben Jesse in Rome in 3761 anno mundi.
Hannukah

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in 1929, American courts had the good sense to ban that British pornographic tome, Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Once it was settled that the moral health of the nation stood to gain from the government determining what was good for the citizenry to read, the Department of Censorship was created and its secretary made a full Cabinet officer. Now, we only read what’s good for us.

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In 1996, NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X which is used on 98% of personal computers today.

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In 1984, British Horror Writer Graham Masterton published IKON, a tribute to Philip K Dick's 1964 counter-factual novel Man in the High Castle. Set in America in 1985, the once-proud nation has been reduced to an Oblast of the USSR with a powerless President. All because some twenty years earlier America secretly lost the Cuban Missiles Crises. Like Dick before him, the essence of Masterton's masterpiece is the book within the book, 'The Eagle Lies Heavy', a work of fiction written by a man called Graham Masterton. It describes a world where the Americans won the Cuban Missile Crisis - as a result, it has been banned by the Americans. Given his unpopularity with the world's two great powers, Masterton is said to live in a heavily fortified home and has become known as "The Author in the High Castle". Critics panned the concept but loved the story. After all, it was predicated on the US surrendering to Secretary Khrushchev. Today we know that Mr Kennedy meant it when he said “the problems of the world today are not susceptible to a military solution”. He had already surrendered by then.

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In 1812, the North American Confederation started a minor war against its Sioux neighbors when a group of N.A.C. colonists moved into land they mistakenly believed to have been ceded to them by the Sioux. Nearly 50 colonists were killed, along with an equal number of Sioux, before the dispute was settled and the N.A.C. colonists withdrew.

In 1946, magician and world-renowned skeptic Uri Geller was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. Geller, an accomplished magician, took on all sorts of “psychics” in his native land, proving them to be phonies. He then took his act to America, where he helped unveil the truth behind notorious frauds such as Jeanne Dixon.

In 1980, in one of the most obvious attempted murders of the century, Sunny von Bulow was found in a coma in her Rhode Island mansion. Her husband, Claus, was arrested and quickly confessed, since the police had him dead to rights. He is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Rhode Island.

In 1977, Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher returned from a Christmas reception at Number 10 Downing Streeting hosted by Interim Prime Minister Lord Louis Mountbatten and his deputy Major General Ord Wingate, DSO. Young people from the Norwich Choir showcase British youth of the “the right sort”. The smile wiped off her face, Thatcher worked through the night on plans for the forthcoming Miner's Strike. She would break the back of the Trade Union movement for sure, but first she needed to stockpile oil and coal like crazy.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day the Spanish Caudillo, General Franco, was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid. The 78-year-old, his bodyguard and a driver died instantly and four other people were injured after a remote-controlled bomb was detonated as he passed. A massive explosion sent the car hurtling into the air and over the roof of the San Francisco de Borga Church where Mr Blanco had just been attending mass. The vehicle landed on the second floor terrace of a building on the other side of the church and a great deal of damage was caused in the area. No one has admitted carrying out the attack.

The General's death came 15 minutes before the start of a trial involving 10 of Spain's leading opponents of the Franco regime, one of them a Roman Catholic priest. They were arrested in a Madrid Church 18 months ago and were accused of unlawful assembly. Thousands of angry demonstrators have campaigned against the case and have already clashed with police. Commentators said the General's death must be seen in the context of this controversial trial and against the backdrop of his staunch support of General Franco's regime. Not since the Civil War, which ended in 1939, has a government minister died in such violent circumstances.

Carter	In 2003, on this day the compendium “A Collection of Political Counterfactuals” was published. Simon Burns' masterful sequel "What if Raymond Lee Harvey had missed?" was a keynote contribution, considering the scenario of May 5, 1979 where President James Earl Carter survives the shooting at the civic center mall in Los Angeles. In this story, another man is hired to create a diversion so that Mexican hit men armed with sniper rifles could kill Carter; he fails and Raymond Lee Harvey shoots Carter with his pistol but misses. The consequence is that Carter is re-elected and implements a two-state solution of Israel and Palestine, bring peace to the Middle East.

In 2182, the United States General Accounting Office (USGAO) published economic and demographic forecasts up to the end of the twenty-second century. By 2200, America would be a quadrillion dollar economy with one billion citizens it was confidently predicted by the USGAO. One man thought otherwise, he had plans to return the Turtle Island to the First Nations by setting the clock back seven hundred years. And he had just obtained the means to do so.	C22 Jihadist

Suleiman

In 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent accepted the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually re-settle on Gibr al-Ţāriq and become known as the Knights of Gibraltar.

In 1989, the United States sends troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega and recover Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Panama. However, Noriega had beaten Bush to it, and the US Marines were confronted by Panamanian troops armed with futuristic weapons.	Bush41

Struggles Among The Elders

July 21st, 2005

in 1704, the inhabitants of the Lalande 25372 star system, still receiving transmissions from the Rope system, but no longer transmitting themselves, detect a somewhat hostile tone in their broadcasts about the Elders’ galactic civilization. The Ropes feel constrained by factional political struggles within the Elders’ society, and are considering breaking away from them.

in 1831, Pope William IV put down the Belgian rebellion as Cardinal Leopold attempted to win independence for his people. William had Leopold executed and replaced with an English cardinal to underscore his disdain for the needs of Belgium.

in 1862, Southern rebels attack the U.S. military at Manassas Junction, Virginia. Poorly organized and hopelessly outgunned, the rebels are dispatched in short order by the Union army, but they inspire others who hope to bring down the Communist government of President Walt Whitman.

in 1899, hack writer Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Never a serious author, Hemingway made his name with such melodramatic fare as Old Man & The Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom The Bell Tolls. While popular with the general public, his work faded quickly after his suicide in 1958.

in 4603, General Zuo Zongtang, conqueror of Hanoi, dies. Although he never lost a battle, his name has become synonymous with a victory that is more costly than a defeat. He left the military in 4563, published his bestselling memoirs in 4571 on the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Hanoi, and retired to life as a restaurant owner in Beijing.

in 1963, Carla Lambert dies in New Jersey at the age of 81. On her deathbed, she confesses that Thomas Edison was not her lover, but was, in fact, her father. She had kept the secret all these years out of respect for the man, not wishing him to be tarnished by the stain of affair.

in 1989, parodist “Weird” Al Yankovic’s first movie, UHF is released. It becomes the highest grossing comedy of all time, outpacing The Blues Brothers with over $258 million in receipts. Yankovic goes on to score other big-screen hits such as Running With Scissors and Long, Long Time Ago, his parody of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

in 1996, word reaches the Chimanimani National Park in Zimbabwe that their request for a truck to move the object has been heard. A truck will arrive in a couple of days to carry it to Harare. Professor Malcolm Thomas corners Dr. Melvin Courtney and asks him if he truly understands the significance of the object; Dr. Courtney, who has been trying not to, says, “I’m not blind; I know what it looks like. But, I will follow proper procedure, nonetheless.”

in 2000, a team of CIA agents arrives at Velma Porter’s New York City apartment and attempts to arrest her and her lover, Mikhail von Heflin. Not wishing these innocent pawns any harm, the Baron confuses them and sends them back to Langley. Meanwhile, he and Ms Porter plot their next visit to a Mr. Steve Huff.


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King Gustavus III Assassinated; Chiu Chiu Massacre

March 16th, 2005

in 1792, King Gustavus III of Sweden was killed by Count Ankarstom as they attended a ball at the Royal Opera. The Count then seized the throne, plunging Sweden into a bloody, 6-year civil war. Most of Scandinavia was drawn into the conflict, which devastated the northern lands of Europe and reduced their influence in world affairs considerably.

in 1861, the Arizona Territory leaves the Union and joins with the Confederate states. This begins an exodus of western territories to the Confederate side, including California. Within the year, the Union is isolated to a handful of northeastern states struggling to hold together in the face of an enemy who surrounds them from all sides but the north.

in 1952, Velma Porter awakens in Heflin, the ruined village that had been the capitol of her lover Mikhail von Heflin’s barony. They had taken refuge in a hidden room in his old mansion after fleeing the mad Doctor Menchekov’s village. She felt her strength returning here, and left her lover asleep to wander about the ruins of his old home. On awaking, he joined her, saying, “Just think, my love, all this is yours, now.”

in 1962, the American plane Constitution disappears while flying over the Pacific Ocean. The 167 people on board are presumed dead until the plane lands the next day in Bombay, India, thousands of miles off-course and unable to account for the time they were missing.

in 1964, Pete Best’s album Your Love Is Mine was released, and immediately started breaking music industry records. It shattered Elvis Presley’s record of concurrent hits on the Top 100, it held all 5 top spots at one point, and it was the best-selling record of its time, among others.

in 1968, a platoon of Marines destroy the small North Chilean village of Chiu Chiu. Led by Comrade Lieutenant Bill Calley, the platoon razed the small settlement, thinking that capitalist guerillos were using it as a base from which to attack soldiers from the Soviet States. As one observer put it later, “After that massacre, every surviving man in that village who wasn’t a capitalist became one.”

in 1996, allied troops push the South Africans out of Namibia and British soldiers raise the Union Jack in Lindetz, a particularly bloody battleground in the small African nation. South Africa now has been pushed back to their original borders, as has their ally, the United States. The writing is on the wall for the two powers, but neither President Terreblanche of South Africa nor President Shephard of America will give up.

in 2004, Livinia Sheridan orders the 7 ships they have with them to do a visual search of the Athena without using their sensors. Since the Titanian methane crabs seem to be invisible to tracking devices, the only way to find them will be to see them. After several long hours without leaving their ships, the Australians report no sighting of the crabs. The Sheridans, under pressure from the Australian government, then destroy the Athena and the Huygens, the spaceship it is carrying.


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Limbs

	In 1962, an American spy plane pilot was freed from prison in the Soviet Union in exchange for a Russian spy jailed in the US. Captain Francis 'Gary' Powers had been previously sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison after his U-2 plane was shot down over Russia in May 1960.
Gary Powers

Gary Powers' capture in 1960 caused an international crisis. Initially the American authorities believed there was no evidence left of either plane or pilot and tried to convince the President the U-2 had been a weather plane. However, the Russians then produced Mr Powers alive and well claiming he had admitted spying for the CIA. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev demanded an apology from US President Eisenhower which was forthcoming, enabling plans for a superpower summit in Paris to go ahead. Historians believe the Eisenhower apology cut short the Cold War by as much as twenty-five years.

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In 1992, the author Alex Haley died in Seattle, Washington on this day. At the funeral, Miles Davis, Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and Malcolm X spoke warmly of the interviews Haley had conducted for Playboy magazine. It was the first time that King and X had meet in twenty-five years. Following King's narrow escape from an assassination attempt, Malcolm X had stated that the chickens have come home to roost. Both agreed that they should meet on a more regular basis, and explore ways to work together for the benefit of African American Civil Rights.

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In 1954, defeated Presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower warned against United States intervention in Vietnam. He was wasting his breath, President Douglas MacArthur had invested too much in the AsiaPac theatre to let the Viet Cong roll him and his French allies over. Brass Hat believed that the recourse to nuclear weapons in Japan was the source of American weakness, after all, had they of executed Operation Downfall as he proposed, no one would doubt their willingness to fight. Still, it did not mean that the bomb was wrong, on the contrary, he intended to drop thirty to fifty such weapons that very year in Manchuria to defeat China.

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In 1840, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. She would die giving birth to Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg in 1857. In isolation with republicanism in the ascendancy, the Regent turned to his blood family in Prussia, starting the beginning of an alliance between Great Britain and Imperial Germany that would dominate the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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Ariel Sharon	In 1983, in an undisclosed location in Palestine, the funeral was held for General Ariel Sharon better known as the notorious terrorist Arik. At his request, Arik's gravestone was marked If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. ~ Psalm 137.
The terrorist Arik

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In 1928, the first murmurs of controversy surround the publication of D.H. Lawrence novel Lord Chatterleys Lover. In England Heterophobia was still rife even in the swinging twenties and the heterosexual love scene between Lady Chatterley and the Gardener Mellors was not considered acceptable.

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	In 2006, Alessandra Mussolini opened the XX Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy. The President dedicated the event to her grandfather, Il Duce.

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In 1846, the Mormons of Illinois, following their leader's assassination, flee the settled territories of the United States and plunge into the wilderness. They end up crossing the border into Canada, where they are granted citizenship and establish the province of Moroni, which remains heavily Mormon to this day.

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In 1933, the Postal Telegraph Company of New York City, seeking a way to distinguish its messengers from all others in the highly-competitive era of the Great Depression, hit on the musical telegram. They hired musicians who would play appropriate theme music while you read your telegram. It was a huge hit, and spawned copycats all over the nation.

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Docklands Bomb	In 1996, BBC News report: Docklands bomb ends IRA ceasefire - 'The IRA admit planting the bomb that exploded in the Docklands area of London last night. One man was found dead by police sifting through the wreckage today and another person has been reported missing. Five of the 39 casualties - including three police officers - remain in hospital, one of them in a critical condition. The bombing marks the end of a 17-month IRA ceasefire during which Irish, British and American leaders worked for a political solution to the troubles in Northern Ireland. They have all condemned the attacks.'
End of Ceasefire

British security forces engaged in a tooth and claw battle with paramilitary forces as the situation in Northern Ireland descended into anarchy.

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	In 1964, American spy plane pilot Captain Francis 'Gary' Powers was freed from prison in the Soviet Union by US Special Forces. During his internment, the Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust has occured. War broke out after a senior Soviet naval captain uses a 'nuclear torpedo' against United States naval forces off the Cuban coast on October 27, 1962. The US immediately initiated airstrikes upon the Soviet missile bases inside Cuba, which succeeded in destroying most, but not all, of the completed missiles. Two remaining Soviet missiles are launched from Cuba, apparently by local commanders exercising their own launch authorities granted from Moscow rather than on a specific order approved by Moscow. The lone functioning missile destroys Washington, D.C. and kills President John F. Kennedy, Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson, and most other key decision-makers.

This act seals the Soviet Union's doom: had Kennedy survived, he might have ordered a measured response; since he didn't, surviving American generals at NORAD, upon learning that the US was under nuclear attack and that the National Command Authority was defunct, initiate the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), which orders a full-scale response before the Soviet leadership is even able to understand what has happened in Washington and begin their own strategic responses. Key Soviet strategic commands are destroyed within minutes, crippling the USSR's ability to respond to the US attack, but the immense reserves of US nuclear warheads in 1962 ensures that retaliation continues well past the destruction of any Soviet military capacity. In the course of The Two Days' War, Cuba is completely destroyed, with 95% of its population being killed; heavy radiation spreads throughout the Caribbean and also damages southern Florida. The Soviet Union is also destroyed, not just militarily crushed, with some 80-90% of its population perishing in the nuclear attacks themselves and the ensuing large-scale famines and radiation sickness. The East European countries are also severely damaged and lose a large part of their populations. The aftermath of the war results in severe, though temporary, environmental changes due to nuclear fallout. Famines occur in India and China and severe food shortages occur in Europe and North America. The US soon comes to be viewed as malefactor rather than victim, and eventually becomes completely isolated and ostracised in the post-war world and is accused of having perpetrated genocide, the 'Second Holocaust'

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Stephen R. Donaldson	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first 'Covenant' trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico. Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever', the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Unbeliever

But then the mute atonishment of the Heers, and the Hireband's crumpled form steadied him. Test me? He rasped. B*stards.

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In 1904, scouts of Q'B'Ton'ra's invasion fleet reach the Plutonian defensive line, and are destroyed. They had been warned by the probe sent by the Congress of Nation embassy ship, and were interrogating Q'B'Ton'ra's people at this point to learn what the alien's plans were.