In 2013, on this day former Leader of the Conservative Party Margaret Thatcher died. She was eighty-seven years old.

Passing of Margaret Thatcher By Ed & Scott PalterOriginally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and became the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She was unlucky to have missed out on the Premiership, because of her Party's narrow defeat at the polls in the 1979 general election.

But the credibility of her leadership was undermined by a crisis in the South Atlantic. When the Argentine Junta sent invading troops to a little known British dependency that Argentina claimed to be their own (the Malvinas), Thatcher called upon Prime Minister Michael Foot to immediately dispatch a task force and reclaim the Islands for Great Britain. But her suggested appeal to President Reagan for military support was mistaken. Having refused to accept American nuclear missiles on British bases as part of the Cold War escalation, Foot was certainly no particular friend of the US Government. However Reagan and Foot quickly established a common interest because the Argentine Junta was secretly running arms to the Contra Rebels in Nicaragua. Any attempt to prevent the Argentinian occupation of the Malvinas would terminate this gun-running activity [1].

Not knowing this, Thatcher derided Foot for seeking a peaceful, multi-lateral resolution in the United Nations. Take unaware by the Contra gun running, she was surprised when the parties arrived at an economically viable alternative - a buy out of relocation for sovereignty under which Islanders were suitably compensated. This was part funded by the Americans who continued the covert support into Nicaragua until the fall of the Sandinistas. And meanwhile, that summer, England won the Football World Cup in Spain and nearly everyone forget all about it. It wasn't the kind of flag-waving patriotism Margaret Thatcher had in mind, and she was forced to resign after a landslide defeat at the 1983 general election.

In 1873, on this day the thirtieth President of the United States John W. Davis was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

John W. Davis
30^th US President
by Ed & Scott PalterAfter graduating from law school, he joined his father in practice in Clarksburg. John J. Davis was a famous regional politician in his own right, being a delegate in the General Assembly, attending the Wheeling Convention and after the northwestern portion of Virginia brokeway in 1863 he was elected to the new state's House of Delegates and later to the United States House of Representatives.

Son John W. followed in his father's footsteps by representing West Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1913, where he was one of the authors of the Clayton Act. Davis also served as one of the managers in the successful impeachment trial of Judge Robert W. Archbald. He served as U.S. Solicitor General from 1913 to 1918 and as ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1921. As Solicitor General, he successfully argued in Guinn v. United States for the illegality of Oklahoma's "grandfather law". Davis was an outsider for the Democratic nomination for President in 1920 and it was this candidature that placed him in the box seat for his successful run in 1924.

Of course Davis would never have gained the Presidency if it were not for the Tea Pot Scandal implicating the First Lady and opening the door to the broader issue of corruption that ultimately destroyed the Harding White House.

In 1980, on this day the anti-Communist insurgency in Afghanistan gained a significant strategic victory with the capture of the government airbase at Bagram.

Afghan DebacleUp until then the airbase had been a major component of the Kabul regime's war to crush the insurgents; its capture dealt a heavy blow to that campaign and would later be cited by post-Cold War historians as an early link in the chain of events that led to the Marxist dictatorship's collapse just six months later. The rebels' capture of the Bagram airbase was aided by disaffected Afghan regular army troops who'd gotten fed up with their low pay and the repressive nature of their government; these men would later join their new allies in repulsing an attempt by government forces to retake the base. A new installment in Necessary EvilTwo days after this failed offensive was turned back, the Afghan army's chief of staff was fired.

The Marxist regime in Kabul immediately petitioned the Soviets for the immediate deployment of massive contingents of Red Army combat soldiers to Afghanistan to shore up the crumbling Afghan regular army. But with the Soviet Union mired deep in its own internal political crisis, Moscow could only spare 10,000 troops -- and even this small force would be hastily withdrawn when food riots erupted in Kiev and Minsk in June of 1980 and pushed the USSR one step closer to the brink of anarchy. The withdrawal soured Afghan-Russian relations in the final years of Communist rule in Moscow and seriously damaged the Red Army's reputation as a fighting force.


Interestingly, some of the same Soviet troops who served in the 10,000-man Red Army contingent briefly deployed to Afghanistan would later join the anti-Communist rebellion that broke out in Russia in the fall of 1980.

In 1743, on this day Sir Thomas Jefferson was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jefferson was serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses when, in 1775, he was called upon by the Second Continental Congress to draft a letter to King George III that sought to reconcile the colonies with their mother country.

Sir Thomas JeffersonThe petition stated that the colonies did not wish to revolt, but simply sought the right to fair taxation and trading rights. The petition reached London in mid-August, and, combined with the news of the battles of Lexington and Concord, convinced the King that the Americans were determined to achieve equal rights, by any means necessary. The King quickly appointed a joint British-American commission to solve the problem of American sovereignty, and in September of 1776 the commission signed an agreement which was soon ratified by the King and Parliament. The main points of the agreement were that:

1. Americans would be taxed at the same rate as British citizens, but that the collected taxes would only be used in America.

2. The Thirteen Colonies were allowed to seat representatives in Parliament, three from each colony, and that the representatives would have full voting rights on all issues pertaining to the Colonies. Also, the Continental Congress would be recognized and expanded as the official representative body of the Colonies.

3. The Thirteen Colonies would be formed into a new dominion, the Confederation of New Britain, and that a Viceroy (always an American) would be appointed to serve much as a Prime Minister.

The agreement took effect on January 1st, 1778, and although denounced by a number of hard-liners (notably Samuel Adams in Boston), the vast majority of Americans supported the agreement, officially known as the Colonial Representation Act. Sir Benjamin Franklin served as the first Viceroy, unfortunately for only three years until his death in December 1790. Sir Thomas Jefferson served as the third Viceroy, from 1807 until 1819. Upon his retirement, he focused on furthering higher education in Virginia, establishing the University of Virginia in 1825. He died on July 4, 1826, a few hours ahead of John Adams, the Royal Governor of Massachusetts.

In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy cancelled the Bays of Pigs Operation after Radio Moscow broadcast an English-language newscast predicting the invasion "in a plot hatched by the CIA" using paid "criminals" within a week.

Stand-downUS Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara dispatched a stand-down order to the bases in Guatemala, Panama and South Floride where "Brigade 2506" had been posed to launch their counter-revolutionary insurgency just four days later. Insensed, the majority of the fifteen hundred U.S.-trained Cuban exiles returned to the Miami area where they would soon create a virulent hot-bed of anti-Kennedy resentment.

Having fought in the Great Patriotic War, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev dismissed Kennedy as a rich playboy who had avoided serious military service. And Soviet Intelligence indicated that the closest Kennedy had come to a physical encounter with Adolf Hitler was the sharing of the sexual favours of the Danish Journalist Ingrid Arvad.

Already planning to exploiting the foreign policy inexperience of the new American President, Khrushchev now redoubled his resolve to press the United States after sensing this unmistakeable sign of weakness as well. And Khrushchev had no plans to create a superpower showdown off the cost of Florida when the city of Berlin offered so much more leverage.

The events of Kennedy's first one hundred days in office would resonate disasterously through the nineteen sixties. Long after Kennedy himself was assassinated in Miami campaigning for re-election.

In 1873, an armed revolt by former Confederates at Colfax on this day forced US President Ulysses S. Grant to acknowledge the growing power of the southern insurgency by declaring a State of Emergency in Louisiana.

Colfax MassacreAfter a bitterly contested gubernatorial election that highlighted the power of forces still threatening to tear apart the Union, both candidates had quickly declared themselves winners. Unwilling to wait for a Republican federal judge in New Orleans to declare Republican William P. Kellogg the victor, White Democrats had moved quickly to put their man John McEnery in office. Seeking to regain power, officially or unofficially, Whites armed with rifles and a small cannon overpowered freedmen and state militia at the Great Parish Court House.

In an event which would repeat itself in a horrifying cycle of violence throughout the South, White Republican officeholders were not attacked but at least 105 African Americans were killed after they surrendered. Visiting U.S. Marshalls would made the grisly discovery of twenty bodies thrown into the Red River, and a further twenty which had been secretly buried.

In 1657, on this day Oliver Cromwell was proclaimed the King of England despite his earlier doctrinal objection to the office "I would not seek to set up that which Providence hath destroyed and laid in the dust, and I would not build Jericho again".

Oliver I (1657-1658) was the founder of the current Royal House of Britain & that of the Royal House of America, until that nation became a Republic in 1964 due to a constitutional crisis.

Although Oliver had a short reign as King, he had been all that but in name since the end of the First English Civil War in 1649, when the then current King Charles I (Stuart) was executed. From there, with the full support of the Parliamentary New Model Army, he defeated Stuart Loyalist uprisings in both Ireland & Scotland.

The Royal House of Cromwell, Part 1 Oliver I (1657-1658) by David AtwellFrom there, Oliver lead the English to victory over the Dutch in 1654 which ensured that the Royal Navy would dominate the seas until the Twentieth Century. In the process of victory, Oliver rejected an offer of the Crown but accepted the position of Protector in 1653. Later in 1657, he was once again offered the Crown, & after much debate from colleagues & friends, decided that a "Puritan gentleman, of humble origins, may indeed make a very good & Godly English King for the good graces of all Englishmen".

"I would not seek to set up that which Providence hath destroyed and laid in the dust, and I would not build Jericho again".Throughout the period of Protectorship & Kingship, other than the various conflicts which Britain found herself in, Oliver established probably the more important legacy Britain, & later America, would come to cherish: a nationwide education system. The Puritans placed great importance on education in both religious & secular matters. Thus by the time of Oliver's death, every village, town & city in Britain had some kind of school of one type or another ensuring that, by the turn of the century, about 80% of the population were literate.

Oliver's claim to the throne, unlike the Stuart's, was in reality based upon the power of the military. Although this was never stated anywhere, the Cromwell Dynasty would have never survived its first year, let alone a long history on the Throne of Britain, without Oliver's control of the New Model Army. In order to gather a legitimate claim to the Throne, however, several writers at the time, & needless to say many ever since, argued that the Cromwells were actually descended from the ancient Welsh Powys Royal Household, which thus fulfilled an old prophesy whereby a descendant of this ancient Royal House would one day become king of Britain & establish a long line of successors. The Cromwells have ever since accepted this claim & used it to justify their Dynasty. Needless to say, the Cromwell Royal Household has always enjoyed overwhelming Welsh support.

In 1964, on this day Nation of Islam representatives Malcolm Little and Louis Farrakhan departed JFK Airport, New York for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia via Cairo. Hajj Part 1 Little and Farrakhan Arrested by Eric Oppen
Upon arrival at Jeddah, Saudi authorities separated and isolated Little and Farrakhan from the group of pilgrims. The pretext for the arrests was the open preaching of the Nation of Islam doctrine, combined with irregularities in their visa entry caused by their inability to speak Arabic and possession of United States passports. Really at issue of course was the unorthodoxy of their Islamic faith and in reality their lives were in deadly danger. In fact the US Government had advised the authorities that the pair were in the Kingdom with the express intention of fermenting trouble for the House of Saud. Muhammad Faisal, the son of Prince Faisal placed his signature on execution orders for the two Americans. That news reached the ears of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group was dedicated to the credo "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope".
The Brotherhood had been an illegal organization, tolerated to varying degrees, since 1954 when it was convicted of the attempt to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser, head of the Egyptian government. Supreme Guide Hassan al Hodeiby had no intention of rescuing Farrakhan, whose fate was already sealed. However, in Little, there was an opportunity to further radicalise a natural radical; his criminal past and harsh childhood would be the bitter soil in which the Brotherhood would plant a fresh seed.
Word was sent to 'get to' Little in gaol. Perhaps on his return to the United States, Agent Little could play a full role in the long-term goal of re-establishing the Sharia, by using "physical power and Jihad for abolishing the organizations and authorities of the Jahili system"
To be continued..

In 2013, on this day the former Mayor of Cleveland Seth Chase Taft died at his home in Pepper Pike after a recent fall. He was ninety years old.

Playing NiceHe was the grandson of President William H. Taft and son of former Cincinnati mayor Charles Phelps.

He was also the nephew of U.S. Senator Robert Taft. After his own unsuccessful race for the Ohio Senate in 1962, he ran for the office of the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1967 (pictured, left), beating Democratic candidate Carl B. Stokes (pictured, right) who was seeking to become the first African American mayor of a major city. In that race, Taft refused to resort to race-based politics during that election, fearing it would tear the city apart. Stokes and his family later praised Taft for his integrity and honesty.

But of course what he will be remembered for most is the iconic photo of Taft and Stokes wearing Royal Blue & White hockey shirts, holding the Stanley Cup up high during the Baron's victory parade in 1968.

In 1915, of the 197 Americans aboard RMS Titanic, 128 lost their lives. U-20 Kapitanleutnant Walther Schwieger was condemned in the Allied press as a war criminal. There was massive outrage in Britain and America. The British felt the Americans had to declare war on Germany. America steers clear of Great WarU.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, fearing the US would declare war, resigned from the Cabinet in protest; however, President Woodrow Wilson still did not want the country to get involved in a European dispute because the American population (many of whom were German-American) did not want to be involved in a war. Instead of declaring war, he sent a formal protest to Germany. Wilson was bitterly criticised in Britain as a coward. Although unrestricted submarine warfare continued at a varying pace into the summer, on August 19 U-24 sank the White Star liner Arabic, with the loss of 44 passengers and crew. Three of the dead were Americans, and President Wilson angrily protested through German diplomatic channels. On August 27, the Kaiser imposed severe restrictions on U-boats attacks against large passenger vessels. On September 18, 1915, he called off unrestricted submarine warfare completely.

In 1961, when Yuri Gagarin left earth's atmosphere it was the pinnacle of human achievement, a mortal man had entered a realm hitherto beholden to the gods. It was also a blow to American pride, and just over a month later John F. Kennedy announce an ambitious program to restore that pride: The US would put a man on the moon within a decade.

Cosmonaut Leonov reporting from the moonFor several years it seemed that it would be a one horse race. However behind the scenes Sergei Korolyov, the Soviet Union's mysterious "Chief Designer", had already started work on designs for manned flights to other planets. By the time the Soviet Union officially announced plans in 1964 the OKB-1 design bureau headed by Korolyov had already created a heavy rocket capable of reaching beyond the low Earth orbit used by the Vostok program.

The impetuous Khrushchev had actually instituted two programmes, one for moon orbits and one for the actual moon landing, each headed by it's own designer. After Brezhnev had taken over power the moon program was streamlined and Korolyov made head of the entire program. And although two separate tracks were maintained for the orbits and the landing Korolyov's leadership unified the efforts.

In early 1967 when both the Americans and Soviets were gearing up for the actual moonflights disaster struck in both camps. In january a simulated launch sequence for the American Apollo project went disastrously wrong and a fire broke out killing the astronauts. And in April the parachute failed to open on a Soyuz vehicle as it returned to earth. The crash killed the cosmonauts, which included Vladimir Komarov who commanded one of the two teams selected for the moon landing.

The unmanned orbit of the moon in May of that year went ahead as scheduled, but the manned orbit was delayed until August of that year as the teams were restructured and the Soyuz crash investigated. The success of the manned orbit, and the earlier success of landing a Luna-9 capsule on the moon's surface gave the Soviets the confidence to push on with their effort. The Soviets also, erroneously, believed that the US would attempt a landing in 1968 so it would be vital to maintain the intended schedule.

After several unmanned flights of the Soyuz-7 vehicle the first manned launch was performed in April 1968. And in June the two-man crew launched an unmanned landing vehicle from lunar orbit. The moon landing was given the go-ahead and crews were prepared for the mission, the first crew would be cosmonauts Leonov Makarov and a reserve crew of Popovich and Voronov would be on standby.

It was a tense time for all involved, especially for Korolyov who was aware that an Apollo launch was scheduled for October. If all went according to plan the Soyuz-7 would be in lunar orbit in september, narrowly beating out the Americans (in fact the Apollo launch was a test flight, the Americans would not attempt a landing on the moon until the next year). The September launch did go ahead and on the 25th the landing module separated from the Soyuz7 command module and headed for the moon.

After a seemingly interminable period of radio silence a message finally came through "Cosmonaut Leonov reporting from the surface of the moon.".. Words that would immediately be spread across the globe. Leonov dedicated his mission to Yuri Gagarin the space pioneer who had died earlier that year.

In 1743, on this day on Ferry Farm, King George County, Virginia, Augustine Washington died age forty-nine. His son George inherited the former Strother property and its slaves, but instead of joining the landed gentry and becoming a planter and slaveholder, he accepted Admiral Vernon's invitation to enroll in the Royal Navy.
This post is an article from the Midshipman George Washington thread.

Midshipman George Washington #1His Uncle Joseph Ball strongly disapproved of his nephew's career choice in a letter to his sister Mary dated 19th May 1747 he wrote ~

"I understand that you are advised and have some thoughts of putting your son George to sea. I think he had better be put apprentice to a tinker, for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the common liberty of the subject; for they will press him from a ship where he has fifty shillings a month and make him take twenty-three, and cut and slash and use him like a negro, or rather like a dog. And, as to any considerable preferment in the navy, it is not to be expected, as there are always so many gaping for it here who have interest, and he has none. And if he should get to be master of a Virginia ship, (which it is very difficult to do,) a planter that has three or four hundred acres of land and three or four slaves, if he be industrious, may live more comfortably, and leave his family in better bread, than such a master of a ship can .. He must not be too hasty to be rich, but go on gently and with patience, as things will naturally go. This method, without aiming at being a fine gentleman before his time, will carry a man more comfortably and surely through the world than going to sea, unless it be a great chance indeed. I pray God keep you and yours".
~ Your loving brother, Joseph Ball.

The rank of midshipman was procured for him on board a British ship of war, and his trunk and clothes were sent on board. But when he came to take leave of his mother, she wept bitterly, and told him she felt her heart would break if he left her (pictured). Mounting his horse, George rode to the ship intending to take his trunk ashore. But destiny intervened and instead he heard the "call of his sea", stepped on board to begin a glorious career in the Royal Navy.

In 1777, on this day the eleventh President of the United States, Henry Clay, Sr. (pictured) was born in Hanover County, Virginia. His father owned more than twenty-two slaves, making him part of the planter class.

Henry Clay, Sr.
11th US PresidentAlthough he received no formal legal education he "read the law" by working and studying with George Wythe, Chancellor of the Commonwealth of Virginia and a mentor to Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, among others. His most notable client was former Vice President Aaron Burr who was indicted for planning an expedition into Spanish Territory west of the Mississippi River. Although he and his legal partner John Allen successfully defended Burr, Jefferson later convinced Clay that US District Attorney Joseph Hamilton Daviess had been right in his charges. Clay was so upset that many years later, when he met Burr again, Clay refused to shake his hand. That pivotal event would have a strange resonance with events that were still forty years into the future.

He moved to Kentucky, and was elected to serve in the General Assembly and later the Senate entering the upper House three months before he reached the constitutionally required age of thirty. In the summer of 1811, Clay was elected to the United States House of Representatives. He was chosen Speaker of the House on the first day of his first session, something never done before or since. Following a long and varied career in the US Senate, he was nominated by the Whigs against James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate.

In one of the closest contests in Presidential history, he won the General election only because of a tragic accident that forced third party candidate James Birney to withdraw from the race. Nevertheless, Clay considered the outcome to be a judgement on US territorial expansion and entered the White House determined to prevent the annexation of Texas or indeed California. British and French investors took a similiar view, and pumped money into both Republics and by the end of the decade, it was becoming possible to imagine two economically viable nations arising in the West. By the time that Clay died in June, 1852 further secessionist pressures were building in the south, and the only question was whether it would be three Americas or four.

It is 1683, and the Turkish army under Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha is advancing through Europe to expand the Ottoman empire. Having reached Austria, they are laying siege to Vienna. Its emissaries are desperately begging the other European leaders for help, only to be rejected.

Vienna Vanquished
by Jackie RoseEngland, France and Spain felt sure they were too far west for a Turkish invasion. But Poland, of course, was much closer to Turkey, and therefore in more danger. As a devout Christian, King Jan III Sobieski of Poland refuses to stand by as another religion dominates the continent. He leads his Hussars to save the city, but the Turks prove too strong for them, the Polish king is killed during the desperate battle, the Turks advance through Europe and it is too late for the other countries to prepare for war. As a result, the Turks dominate Europe to this day as part of their Ottoman empire.

In 1945, the sad, single term Presidency of Bill Douglas which began on this day was born in a smear that ended in a debacle.

The sad, single term presidency of Bill DouglasFDR had sent two names to the Chicago convention in 1944 - he would take either Truman or Douglas in place of the discredited Wallace. Douglas's liberal backers solved the problem by leaking supposed police reports showing that rather than being associated with the Pendergast machine but clean, Truman had in fact been a bag man for the mobbed up KC Democrats. It was a lie. Truman had been put up to keep an exurban office in friendly hands but was himself clean [the same could not be said of his friends and associates]. However with liberal prodding the Chicago papers ran with the story long enough to sink him at the convention. Needless to say he never forgave Douglas or the liberals, remaining a persistent critic from his Senate seat.

A new article by Scott PalterThe US public may not have realized that in reelecting FDR in 1944 they were electing a walking corpse but the key players in the Democratic party were quite aware. Labor and the liberals knew they could work with Douglas. The urban bosses and Dixie had preferred Truman. When Douglas's presidency turned sour this split would manifest itself. Douglas offered milder terms to Japan at Potsdam breaking with FDR's Unconditional Surrender. He was still not mild enough to get the Japanese militarists to face reality. It took two atom bombs for them to see the light. Dougals's liberal supporters never fully forgave him for using those weapons. Wallace from his perch in the Commerce Department led the critics.

The postwar demobilization and conversion to civilian production was a debacle. The unions ran wild with the country repeatedly paralyzed by strikes. Truman called for decisive presidential action, especially against the railroad strike. Douglas would not break with the unions. Inflation skyrocketed and the piecemeal removal of controls made matters worse. Douglas's attempts to keep Lend Lease going took a good part of the blame for the mess. The UK was bankrupt and Europe and Japan were starving. So the need was there but the American public begrudged the expense. The war was over and they wanted to forget the world existed.

Douglas's policy towards Communism exacerbated matters. Trying to avoid a break with the Democratic Party's left, Douglas abandoned Chiang, accepted partitions of Iran and Norway, allowed the Soviets to force Turkey to part with territory and bases and watched Greece torn apart by civil war. He kept trying to find a way to work with his old left allies internally and refused to accept that many Americans regarded domestic Communists as traitors.

This crystallized in the 1946 elections. Douglas campaigned for his party on conciliation with the Soviets, an end to segregation and extension on the New Deal. The Republicans captured both houses of Congress and a host of state legislatures. Most of the south walked out of the party to form independent state Democratic parties dedicated to segregation and white supremacy. The victorious Republican slogan was ?had enough'.

Faced with a heavily Republican Congress Douglas was forced to make some compromises. He was forced to break with the Soviets. The Marshal Plan to rebuild Europe was launched. Chiang was supported on Taiwan. Greece was partitioned and the rump of Turkey was given large scale US aid although the Soviet bases at Gallipoli remained. A German Federal Republic was formed out of the allied occupation zones in Germany and Austria but at the price of giving up the allied sectors of Berlin and Vienna. Macarthur was replaced in Japan by Collins and the semi-New Deal experiments were ended. Instead Japan was rebuilt as a bulwark against Soviet power. Several million Korean refugees fled there when Kim destroyed South Korea [Douglas had evacuated the US occupation force rather than sully his hands dealing with the authoritarian and unpleasant Rhee regime]. Douglas also danced on Palestine. The UN proved unable to approve either partition or an extension of the British mandate so the British withdrew and the place descended into chaos out of which an Israeli state was born with little international recognition beyond the Soviet Block.

Domestically the high points of the new Congress were an anti-lynching bill [which in turn required a large force of US marshals to enforce] and Douglas's desegregation of the armed forces. The cost of these advances were major race riots in several dozen cities as the white public rebelled against being pushed and the newly empowered blacks pushed back. The Taft-Hartley Act was met by another round of massive strikes, these overtly political. Douglas sealed his political fate by always siding with the unions.

The 1948 election was an anti-climax. Despite all the coddling, Wallace ran for President anyway. Strom Thurmond ran a regional states rights campaign in Dixie. Douglas and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota ran as avid New Dealers but the public had had enough. Thurmond carried 14 southern and border states. Dewey carried the rest with 50 percent of the vote. The icing on the cake came two weeks before the election when Stalin's armies marched into Belgrade to bring Yugoslavia back into the Soviet orbit. Exposed as impotent at home and abroad, Douglas went off into retirement leaving the Democratic Party to wish they had chosen Truman.

In 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference effectively forfeited control of the civil rights campaign with Martin Luther King's refusal to violate the injunction of racist police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Conner by leading a march in Birmingham, Alabama.

MLK loses the Battle of BirminghamDespite his depiction in the press as an American Gandhi, many of his youthful admirers doubted whether in fact MLK had the resolve to "break the back of segregation all over the nation". This perception had begun with his refusal to join the May 1961 Freedom Rides, and cemented by leaving jail with a bond following the unsuccessful mass protests in Albany, Georgia which MLK himself dismissed as "Our protest was so vague that we got nothing, and the people were left very depressed and in despair".

The problem was that the bondsman had refused to furnish bail, and the SCLC lacked the funds to release their own protestors. King was informed that "We need a lot of money. We need it now. You are the only one who has the contacts to get it. If you go to jail, we are lost. The battle of Birmingham is lost". MLK took the advice. And so the pressure that had been successfully applied to white and business community leaders by the sit-ins was allowed to dissapate. King had lost the Battle of Birmingham. Just a few hours after King announced his decision at the Garston Hotel, he received the wholley unexpected news that the entertainer Harry Bellafonte had raised sufficient funds to cover the bond payments, but by then, it was too late.

The leadership of the civil rights campaign would soon pass to more radical figures, one of whom had spent a great deal of time in jail himself. That man was Malcolm X.

In 1861, on this day the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter forced the US Congress to dismiss President James Buchanan's administration less than one month after resuming office.

Pilot of the StormThe scenario that the legislative arm of government might need to fire the executive had not been foreseen by the Founding Fathers, who instead of crowning George Washington, had proclaimed that the US Constitution was King. But the decision to place their trust in a sacred, but rigid and unbending rule of law had proven as dangerous as reliance on a monarch because it required flexible intepretation by a strong-willed Chief Magistrate. And the trouble was, a weak succession of Presidents since Andrew Jackson had exposed major flaws in the American system of government.

By the mid 1850s the country was heading for Civil War, unchecked by the bold and imaginative leaders that might preserve the Union. And so Walter Bagehot was invited from England, a man of letters widely considered to be the leading expert on constitutional matters of the day. Bagehot's committee proposed a series of jaw-dropping recommendations, but the central proposal was undisputed. Because America's fixed term system surely did embed apathy in the body politic. And the scenario foreseen by Bagehot, a national crisis in which a "pilot of the calm" would need to be quickly replaced by a "pilot of the storm" arrived soon enough.

In 1861, the Army of North Virginia seized the armoury at Harper's Ferry, pausing only briefly to pay respects at the graveside of Robert E. Lee, the late Brevet Colonel of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry. Had murderous abolitionist John Brown not shot him dead during the infamous raid two years before, Lee himself might well have been in command the Confederate Forces, leading a conventional invasion of the North in his own audacious style.

Unrelenting WarFortunately for the Southern States, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (pictured) was in charge, a uniquely gifted officer who did not believe that the heroic acceptance of battlefield casaulties would force a decision. Instead, Jackson's strategy of "Unrelenting War" was to bypass Union armies and strike at Northern weaknesses, its undefended factories, farms and railroads. His genius was to realise that the Confederacy, with only a third of the population, and eleventh percent of the national infrastructure, needed to fight an unconventional war if it was to prevail, by breaking the back of Northern morale.

"to [make the North] understand what it will cost them to hold the South in the Union at the bayonet's point"CSA President Jefferson Davis preferred a defensive approach, foolishly believing that Great Britain or France would intervene to guarantee the supply of cotton for their mills. However the European Nations were carrying heavy stocks of cotton, and he had been forced to reconsider Jackson's assertion that the North might be forced "to understand what it will cost them to hold the South in the Union at the bayonet's point". That difference of opinion had cost Davis the Southern leadership, and his successor, Albert Sidney Johnson authorised the new policy of "unrelenting war".

And so the Army of North Virginia headed north, intent on seizing the major rail-heads at Baltimore and Philadelphia. Such an assault was of great surprise to US President Abraham Lincoln, whose chief fear was that Jackson would seize Washington. By deploying his forces to protect the capitol, he unwillingly allowed Jackson to strike at the North's supply and communications.

In 2002, the CIA informs President Gore that it believes al-Zawahiri is now in northern Pakistan, possibly under the protection of dissident elements of that country's military and secret police.

Bin Laden Lives by Eric LippsWhen the President asks what can be done to root him out, he is told that a covert operation within Pakistan is the best available option, but that it may take time, since the terrorist leader's exact location is not known.

A reluctant Gore authorizes such an operation, which will be codenamed Operation Mountain Strike.