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

Decisions

In 1976, Jeremy Thorn fell silent; Mrs Baylock waited while the sounds of a police car sped towards them, and passed on by the window. "My wife Katherine's dead," replied Thorn without emotion. "I want the child to die, too." They listened to the sounds of the streets outside and both were still awake at dawn when the sounds had fallen to silence. At eight o'clock Mrs Baylock dialed El-Al and booked the flight to Israel.	Hallowe'en Story

Logan	In 2119, with the approach of red nine (his twentieth ninth birthday) Sandman Logan 3 was forced to confront the immediacy of his lastday. Logan had a choice of waiting to report to Sleepshop for willing execution, or to make a run for it.
The very next day the decision was made for him. Age was revealed by the citizen's palm flower — a crystal embedded in the palm of their right hand that changes color every seven years, then turns black on Lastday. Logan's palm flower turned black, a year early.

In 1985, enlightened feminist author Margaret Atwood her husband and child make a failed attempt to escape from the Republic of Gilead and cross into native Canada.

Aunt Lydia	Atwood had accurately predicted a dystopian vision of American society in the period 1970–1985, particularly in the period of backlash against contemporary feminism. By working against pornography, feminists in the early 1980s opened themselves up to criticism that they favoured censorship. It is worth noting that during the Iranian revolution, an alliance of Western-educated intellectuals advocated modernism and Marxism but were defeated by other factions. Women played a key role in the revolution, and at the time The Handmaid's Tale was written, it was a common fear that Iranian women would be completely disempowered by their own accomplishment.
Handmaid

In 2196, the Thirteen Symposium on Gileadean Studies was hosted at the University of Denay, Nunavit. Delegates drew paralells between late twentieth century Iranian and Gileadean societies. Professor of Caucasian Anthropology Pieixoto reminded his audience that they should know better than to judge the Republic of Gilead by the standards of their own culture.

Pieixoto pointed out that the Gileadean created their seemingly barbaric rules to accommodate unique pressures that no longer exist, and that "contemporary" society can thus not fully appreciate their purposes or rationale. The full article is available at Wikipedia

Barbeau	In 1962, on this day at 1:00 PM 26 October, John Scali of ABC News lunched with Aleksandr Fomin at Fomin's request. He noted that "war seems about to break out" and asked Scali to use his contacts to talk to his "high-level friends" at the State Department to see if the US would be interested in a diplomatic solution. He suggested that the language of the deal would contain an assurance from the Soviet Union to remove the weapons under UN supervision and that Raymond Barbeau would publicly announce not to accept such weapons in the future, in exchange for a public statement by the US that they would never invade Quebec. The US responded by asking the Brazilian government to pass a message to Barbeau that the US would be "unlikely to invade" if the missiles are removed.

In 1944, Future Vice-president, and later, President Harry Truman publicly confirmed having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Truman admitted that in 1922, he had given a friend $10 for an initiation fee for the Ku Klux Klan but later asked to get his money back; he was never initiated, never attended a meeting, and never claimed membership.	Truman

Kriegsmarine	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. Admiral James Somerville was the candidate and the context was Operation Catapault. The moment was seconds before the pre-emptive strike by the Royal Navy on Mers-el-Kébir which killed 1,000 French sailors and sunk the French Mediterranean Fleet before it could be seized by the Kriegsmarine. Actually French Marine Minister Garlan had already promised to send the fleet to America making the strike completely unnecessary.
MC Millennia asked if Mers-el-Kébir was not a more cowardly strike than Pearl Harbour, and if the conventional historical view was simply “victor's justice”. British Admiral Somerville was less enthusiastic about the action saying that it was "the biggest political blunder of modern times and will rouse the whole world against us…we all feel thoroughly ashamed…"

In 1918, in Germany the government within the government became the government. Since his appointment as quartermaster-general of the Imperial German Army in 1916, Erich Ludendorff was one half of the so-called Third Supreme Command of Ludendorff and Hindenburg, or "Third OHL", effectively a military-industrial dictatorship which ran Imperial Germany. On this day in 1918 Ludendorff refused to cooperate in peace negotiations and was dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Ludendorff and Hindenburg sent the Kaiser into exile in Germany, and continued the war effort. Many year later during the rise of Hitler, this event was portrayed as the Dolchstoßlegende ("Dagger stab legend") which caused Germany to collapse because the Kaiser had failed to respond to his "patriotic calling" at the most crucial of times and - some said – had even intentionally "sabotaged the war effort."	Dolchstosslegende

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

Force

In 1976, Jeremy Thorn said without expression "I already know the name of the man I'm supposed to see is Bugenhagen. That was the name, I've remembered it all. " "'When the Jews return to Zion '" Thorn recited in a near whisper, "'and a comet fills the sky and the Holy Roman Empire rises then all of us will die.'" Mrs Baylock listened intently in the darkness; finally, alterted by the lifeless tone, she knew something in Thorn had changed. "'From the eternal sea she rises with armies on either shore turning man against his brother until man exists no more.'"	Hallowe'en Story

Jousting	In 2007, federal legislators promised to review health and safety regulations in Equestrianism following another jousting fatality. A man died in a freak accident at a jousting tournament on Monday. The unnamed man died after a splinter of wood from a lance flew through the slit of his helmet and penetrated his eye. He died after a week in hospital. The accident occurred in September but the man's death has only just been made public. "We have been shocked and deeply saddened by this tragic accident," a United States Department of Agriculture spokeswoman said. "The professional event has an excellent safety record and took all the appropriate and necessary precautions and it does sadly appear this was a tragic freak accident."
Fatality

The United States Department of Agriculture perform routine inspections of horse shows including jousting events, but safety concerns are difficult to eliminate in this controversial high contact sport.

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Quebec

In 1943, the Governor General of Canada, Major General Alexander Augustus Frederick William Alfred George Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS, born Prince Alexander of Teck warmly welcomed Allied leaders to the Quebec Citadel. Earl Athlone was joined for a series of strategy meetings by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The agenda was to decide the strategies of the Western Allies that would lead to victory over Nazi Germany and Japan.

Closing the conference, Athlone thanked the Allied leaders for their attendance. Of course, only Roosevelt was leaving the country. Churchill and the British Royal Family were amongst the other members of the British Government in Exile, staying at the Governor's residence at Rideau Hall, Ottawa.

In 2008, service agents at the head office of the restaurant chain Wanda's of Montreal received complaints from customer regarding abusive messages on the company's web site. "B*rfed, totally thux" was widely reported by customers as the most offensive comment.

Gromyko	In 1962, at an emergency session of the UN Security Council Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko showed photographs proving American missiles were installed in Izmir. He forcefully asked the American ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, if his country was installing missiles in Turkey, punctuated with the famous demand "Don't wait for the translation, answer 'yes' or 'no'!" in demanding an immediate answer. Following Stevenson's refusal to answer the abrupt question, Gromyko retorted, "I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over." In a diplomatic coup, Gromyko then showed photographs that proved the existence of missiles in Turkey, just after the American ambassador had said they did not exist.

In 1956, a week after his 17th birthday Lee Harvey Oswald enlisted in the US Marine Corps. His shyness and Soviet sympathies alienated him to his fellow Marines. Ostracism only seemed to provoke him into being a more staunch and outspoken communist. For his steadfast beliefs his nickname ultimately became Oswaldskovich. The Marine had subscribed to The Worker and taught himself rudimentary Russian. During his otherwise undistinguished military career, Oswald earned the Sharpshooter weapons qualification badge with a score of 212 out of 250 targets, average or slightly above average for a Marine, and far above average judged by civilian standards. Initially the KGB considered Oswald to be a potential deep sleeper agency.	Alek
He proved unreliable after his arrival Minsk, and to protect their investment, the KGB eliminated Oswald and substituted him with a Soviet double named Alek. Impersonating Oswald, Alek was ordered by Khrushchev to “return” to the United States and eliminate Kennedy before he could win the Cold War for America.

Hiroshima	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. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the candidate, the context was the Manhattan Project and the moment was seconds before FDR expired. Would FDR endorse a decision by a successor to drop the Bomb on the cities of Japan if it would save hundreds of thousands of American lives? FDR said in principle he would, but was concerned that successors would be trapped in the Pandora's Box logic of the bomb. MC Millenia asked FDR to explain quickly and he said that adversarial powers would doubt the commitment of future US Governments to commit ground troops, and if they did not drop the bomb, they would be forced to accept defeat.

In 2003, on this day the Cedar Fire is reported at 5:37 pm. It becomes the second largest wildfire in California history. Most significantly, it forced sasquatch to leave their native habitat. Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin had captured sasquatch on film at Bluff Creek, California in 1967 and the authenticity of that event was now unambiguously verified thirty-six years later.	Big Foot

Visions

Rev. Ratty	In 1976, as Damien Thorn was celebrating his narrow escape from the knives of his adopted father at Meggido, watching Ambassador Thorn get buried, he feels a hand upon his shoulders. "I'll see you again, shortly," Estelle Gerard says to him, "and next time, the people caring for me won't be so easily tricked." With that, she ascended to Heaven, leaving Damien to ponder the fact that he was going to have a very short life, indeed.
Professor Emeritus

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In 1930, Aldeburgh Lodge school magazine rather wittily imagined how children taught in 1909 would have viewed modern Britain. An obviously humorous map of the world of 1907 was shown in which the British Empire was reduced to Iceland, leaving the rest — including even `Kgl. Preuss. Reg. Bez. Grossbritannien' — to Germany. The reality of course was that Britain was 'a small island off the western coast of Teutonia'.

In 1916, combat tension combined with an over-active imagination amplified by the experience of the Battle of the Somme had traumatised Second Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, eleventh battalion Lancashire Fusiliers.
Balrog	"Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud, he smote the the Bridge [of Khazad-Dum] before him. The bridge cracked. Right at the Balrog's feet it broke. With a terrible cry, the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it feel it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled around the wizad's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasping vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss".
Inside a military field hospital Tolkien fought a mental battle to defeat the phantasmagoric projections of the Somme. A battle, he would both win, and lose, and win again. Like Kurt Vonnegut fifty years later, Tolkien's need for expression sought out escapist literature, and his own fight was portrayed in this animated scene from the Mines of Moria. And also later, when he finally defeated the Balrog in the well of the Abyss.

Alternate Kenne..	In 1968, Republican President-elect Robert F Kennedy died in an automobile crash in Massachusetts. Also in the vehicle but unharmed was unsuccessful Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Edward M Kennedy. The brothers had met in New York to settle their differences after a close-fought campaign, and had decided to relax at the Cottage at Martha's Vinyard. Soon into the journey, feeling fatigued they had realised it was a mistake. A short distance from the Cottage, they had approached the difficult bend at Chappaquiddick, and the car skidded off the bridge into Poucha Pond where the President-Elect died.
Kennedy's running mate Richard M Nixon had been forced to step aside to permit Robert Kennedy to run. With the nominee's death, he now prepared to enter the White House as described in Mark Aronson's dramatic account President-Elect.

In 1995, in Ottawa, Canada Duc de Richleau and Rex van Ryn rescued the Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his wife Aline from a First Nation cult. During the rescue they prevent André Dallaire brandishing an Inuit stone sculpture of a loon. The Prime Minister and his wife escape to the home of the Eatons, friends of Richleau and van Ryn, and are followed by the group's leader, Mocata, who has a psychic connection to the Chrétiens. After visiting the house to discuss the matter, and an unsuccessful attempt to influence the initiates to return, Mocata forces Richleau and the other occupants to defend themselves through a night of first nation magic attacks. The dramatic story was described in the 2000 TV movie The Inuit Rides Out directed by Dennis Wheatley Junior.	Inuit Rides Out

Snakeyes	In 1963, the strange being known as Snake Eyes arrived in Dallas. He had sight of the Presidential motorcade route, and the mind controlled patsy Lee Harvey Oswald had secured a job at the location from which the shot would be taken. Of course the suggestion that Oswald himself would take the shot was simply ludicrous; during his otherwise undistinguished military career, Oswald had barely earned the Sharpshooter weapons qualification badge with a score of 212 out of just 250 targets. A lone gun might get one head shot, and choosing an ex marine who hit the target 4 times out of 5 from a short distance years before, that would have been a fool's odds.

In 1965, US President John F Kennedy is briefed on Operation Quartz . To prevent the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), this plan envisaged placing Rhodesian troops at strategic points from which they could simultaneously wipe out the terrorists at the Assembly Points and assassinate Robert Mugabe and the other terrorist leaders at their campaign headquarters. The strike would be assisted by Puma helicopters of the South African Air Force and would involve the participation of elite Recce units of the South African army.	Kennedy

Hallowe'en

Haloween	In 1976, the police siren reached its apex and stopped, the child screaming as Jeremy Thorn raised the stiletto high above him. "Stop!" shouted a voice from the street and two policemen emerged from the rain, one drawing a resolver as they ran from their car. Thorn glanced up at them, then down at the child, and with a sudden cry of rage plunged the knife downward, the child's scream coming simultaneously with the sound of a gunshot. For a moment, everything was frozen. Then the church doors swung open and a priest stared out at the scene: a tableau behind the veil of down-pouring rain.
Hallowe'een Story

By using just one of the seven knives of Meggido, Thorn had only succeeded in extinguishing physical life from the saviour, Estelle Gerard. "This makes things really difficult" said Father Brennan, stepping forward to face the policemen.

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Alexander Litvinenko

In 2006, former KGB spy and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised. He died three weeks later, becoming the first known victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. Litvinenko's allegations about the misdeeds of the KGB and his public accusations that the Soviet government was behind his unusual malady resulted in worldwide media coverage.

The unsolved death brought a new low to Anglo-Soviet relations. "The police investigation will proceed, and I think people should know that there is no diplomatic barrier to that investigation," Mr. Blair told reporters during a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. The use of polonium-210 is an alarmingly new escalation in the biological phase of the Cold War going back almost thirty years. 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. Security around government facilities has been doubled and the British Security Forces are on their highest alert since the first Gulf War ending in exchanges of bio-weapons with Iraq in 1991.

Abraham Lincoln	"A house divided against itself cannot stand. (Mark 3:25) I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved..It will become all one thing, or all the other." ~ Abraham Lincoln (16 June 1858) Before the War of Southron Independence forced a decision - “the other”. A synopsis of Lincoln's pre-election statements are detailed at Wikipedia
US President

Kinky Friedman	In 2008, on the eve of Election Day, Texan singer/songwriter and Independent US Presidential Candidate Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman provided an explanation for drinking a Guinness beer in a moving vehicle in Dallas, Texas on St. Patrick's day - I admit to drinking it, but I did not swallow.

In 1952, Operation Ivy was conducted on Elugelab Island in the Enewetak atoll of the Marshall Islands. The United States successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike" yielding 10.4 megatons of explosive power, over 450 times the power of the bomb that fell on Nagasaki. Military planners were once again trapped inside the logic of the nuclear option. Applying Bernard Montgomery's second law they had demonstrated unwillingness to “take their land army to Asia” and accept American casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Therefore with Communist forces threatening to overrun Korea, China and Vietnam US President Thomas Dewey had two choices. Either to withdraw from Asia or to use the hydrogen bomb. He chose the latter, it was a no brainer really.	Hydrogen Bomb

Margaret Thatcher

In 1990, on this day the Conservative Government of Great Britain was dealt a fatal blow by the resignation of a senior cabinet minister. Margaret Thatcher, one of Sir Geoffrey Howe's oldest and staunchest supporters, resigned from her position as Deputy Prime Minister in protest at Howe's European policy. In her resignation speech in the House of Commons two weeks later, she suggested that the time had come for "others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties" with which she stated that he had wrestled for perhaps too long.

In 1973, on this day Leon Jaworski was appointed as the new Watergate Special shortly after the Saturday Night Massacre which led to the dismissal of prosecutor Archibald Cox. During his tenure as Special Prosecutor, Jaworski was perhaps most famous for his protracted constitutional battle with the White House concerning his attempts to secure evidence for the trial of former senior administration officials on charges relating to the Watergate cover-up. The Special Prosecutor knew that President Robert F Kennedy had discussed the Watergate cover-up with the accused on numerous occasions and that these conversations had been recorded by the White House taping system. Jaworksi requested tapes of sixty-four Presidential conversations as evidence for the upcoming trial. The President refused to hand them over, citing executive privilege.	Richard Nixon
The Watergate scandal refers to a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. by members of the Kennedy administration. The White House “plumbers” were attempting to stage manage a burglary by the Republican nominee Richard Nixon, the second time the Kennedys had cheated Honest Dick out of the White House. The resulting cover-up led to the resignation of the President.