In 1937, on this day sixty-fourth United States Secretary of State Madeleine Korbelová Albright born in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Blank CzechAfter serving as 20th United States Ambassador to the United Nations, she became the first woman to become the United States Secretary of State. A gifted if somewhat idealistic foreign affairs person conversant into six languages, she was routinely re-appointed following Bill Clinton's third-term re-election in 2000. But as events would transpire, continuity carried with it a heavy cost.

Clinton had listened to his Intelligence Services through his second term, closely monitoring the rise of al-Qaeda. Although follow-up actions were taken after the bombing of the USS Cole, the Administration failed to prevent the September 11th attack. In the aftermath, Albright played a leading role in building an international consensus, contextualizing the War on Terror as a global threat requiring co-ordinated actions.

But unfortunately trust was a double-edge sword and she was undone by events on the Korean peninsula. Having advocated food for disarming agreements, her credibility was destroyed by the jaw-dropping revelation that North Korea had developed nuclear weapons.

In 1968, [1] on this day Alabama Governor George Wallace was assassinated by Arthur Bremer in the Confederate State of East Maryland while campaigning to become President. Running as a Nationalist, he was hoping to succeed 19th POTCS Lyndon Baines Johnson whose single six-year term was due to end on March 4, 1969. An installment of the Federal's Lost Cause thread.

Federal Lost Cause Part 10: Assassination of the Fighting Little JudgeThe shooting occurred in the city of Laurel in northern Prince George's County. But the assassin had been seen earlier that day at another Wallace rally. The tragedy was the latest episode in a long series of disasters that had struck the Chesapeake Bay State over the course of a century and a half.

• During the War of 1812, British redcoats had marched through the county by way of Bladensburg to burn the White House. On their return, they kidnapped a prominent doctor, William Beanes. Lawyer, Francis Scott Key was asked to negotiate for his release, which resulted in his writing the Star Spangled Banner.
• With sympathies between the Union and the Confederacy following an East/West boundary, the ham-fisted policies of Acting President Hannibal Hamlin caused the geographical splitting of the State at the outside of the Civil War.
• In April 1865, a Marylander John Wilkes Booth had made his escape through Prince George's County after shooting President Hamlin in the Ford's Theatre (by then the Federal Government had returned to Washington, D.C having spent much of the war in Philadelphia). Booth was on his way to the Confederate Capital, Virginia.

In 1902, on this day Richard Joseph Daley was born in Bridgeport, a working-class neighborhood of America's Second City, Chicago. He was the only child of Michael and Lillian (Dunne) Daley, whose families had both arrived from the Old Parish area, near Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland during the Great Famine.

Birth of Richard J. Daley, Chicago Mayor for LifeVery much a political expression of the aggressive tendencies of Chicagoans, he was the Mayor for twenty-one years and chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee for twenty-three years, holding both positions until his death in office in 1976. During this period he would govern a mega-city sprawling out into much of Cook County. And because he invested all of his political capital in launching a long-term policy of suburban annexation [3] he will be forever associated with never-ending highway construction on I-94 through the Windy City and its suburbs [4].

Ten years before he took office,the National League Chicago Cubs beat the American League Detroit Tigers [1] in the 1945 World Series. Even back then, many doom-cryers were predicted the decline of Chicago that other "rust belt" cities like Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit were beginning to experience. However events conspired to transition the blue collar "City of Broad Shoulders" to the modern day white collar mecca "Chi-Town", an economic powerhouse in the snow belt. Firstly, the earthquake of 1964 [2] held back the development of its rival city of Los Angeles. And secondly, the expansion into the suburbs. Neverthless, by the late nineteen eighties Los Angeles was fast re-emerging with the the rise of the Sun Belt, and Chicagoans began to look nervously at the relative decline of St. Louis. Of course Detroit had only been saved from haunting ruin by the action of local advocates who had lobbied the United Nations into basing their head-quarters on Belle-Isle.

His three sons followed him into politics. His son Richard M. Daley became mayor of Chicago in 1989 and served until 2011, breaking his father's record for longest serving mayor of Chicago. Son William M. Daley is a former United States Secretary of Commerce and White House Chief of Staff. Son John P. Daley is a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and served in the Illinois State Legislature. It was a political dynasty that transformed the cynical perception of Chicago politicians, as corrupt officials giving hand outs to the Mafia, a hangover from the bad old days of Al Capone.

In 334 BC, on this day King Alexander III of Macedon was killed in a battle with the forces of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor at the crossing of the Granicus River.

Battle of the GranicusHis own Companion Cavalry had charged headlong into the River to attack Memnon of Rhodes' Anatolian and Greek Mercenary forces which were arrayed against him on the other side. Leading from the front as always, Alexander ploughed into the first ranks of the enemy and along with a small group of his bodyguards burst into rear ranks where the Persian Commander Spithridates was pushing his own men into some order.

The Persian's first blow knocked Alexanders white plumed helmet sideways. Then he raised his large two-handed axe above his head and dispatched the young Macedon King just before his kinsmen "Cleitus the Black" could thrust his spear into Spithridates' neck.

With the battle lost, the Macedonian killing machine was halted and his unruly generals fell to squabbling about who would now lead the Army.

In 326 AD, with absolutely nothing to lose, Fausta Flavia Maxima confronted her husband Emperor Constantine I with the truth about the filthy lies being spread by his mother Helena. Rid of a delusion intended to unravel his well laid succession plans, he recovered his senses by instantly revoking the orders to execute her and his heir Crispus, the son born to his first wife Minervina. Although Helena was spared executed she was sent into internal exile.

Constantine future-proofs the DominateOf course this reversion to the original plan had the side effect of disinheriting the beneficiaries of the plot, his three surviving sons Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans, and his two nephews Delmatius and Hannibalianus. And so, for the eleven remaining years of his reign, he had to hastily re-engineer the power structure of the Dominate. Of course what emerged was a modified form of the Hexarchy with senior "collegiate" leadership positions for all of the five siblings. But although this new order had the outward similiarities with the Diocletian System that Constantine I had helped destroy, it was robust because in practice it was even more totalitarian in nature. By accident rather than design, he had installed a future-proofed governance structure which substituted rivalry for nepotism. Needless to say, at the cost the memory of freedom and liberty in the minds of the Roman citizens.

In 1567, finally Mary, Queen of Scots found enduring happiness with her third husband James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell who she married on this historic day at the Holyrood Palace in the great city of Edinburgh. In fact, the Queen was so madly in love with Bothwell that she now appeared to give up even her Catholicism for him because the wedding was conducted according to the Protestant rites.

Happy Endings Part 4
The Wedding at HolyroodTo be sure the groom's elevation to Duke of Orkney fostered resentment in some quarters of Scottish society. And some Catholics even considered the marriage unlawful, since they did not recognise Bothwell's divorce or the validity of the Protestant service Also during the early months of their rule, murmurings of a rebellion were heard amongs the Scottish nobility who required little encourage to revert to lawlessness, violence, feuds and rapacity.

However the arrest and conviction of Mary's treacherous half-brother, the Earl of Moray, removed a mischievous key individual who could have siezed the thrown given the slightest opportunity. Another conspirator removed from the scene was the Queen's second husband, Lord Darney; it took a seven-hour murder trial to prove Bothwell's innocence. At last, Mary was able to put down a stable governance platform to build upon for the future. They never looked back; the royal couple were able to move the political situation forward, diminishing the power of the nobles and thus properly immersing Stuart Rule in the fabric of the still-Independent Kingdom of Scotland.

In 2012, on this day the fortieth anniversary of Operation Duck Hook was observed in both Vietnamese Capital Cities. Public reaction to this decisive act in the long civil war highlighted the increasing momentum for re-unification. Because the younger generation of citizens in the Republic of Vietnam openly questioned President Nixons's punitive nuclear bombing of the northern port of Haiphong.

A Savage, Decisive BlowThe origination of Duck Hook was the 1968 President election; to cynically exploit political expediency Nixon promised that "new leadership will end the war" in Vietnam. And so after assuming the presidency in January 1969, one of Nixon's top priorities was to end the War as quickly as possible on terms favorable to his administration.

The "secret plan" architected by National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger had become clear by the summer - a combination of international diplomacy with threats and acts of force would induce North Vietnam to bend to their will. A memo from Henry Kissinger to Nixon asked, "Should we be prepared to use nuclear weapons?" The memo warned that "Since we cannot confidently predict the exact point at which Hanoi could be likely to respond positively, we must be prepared to play out whatever string necessary". Kissinger's memo also stated that "To achieve its full effect on Hanoi's thinking, the action must be brutal".

To evaluate the secret plan prepared by members of the Joint Staff in Washington and military planners in Saigon, Kissinger set up a special NSC staff planning committee dubbed the "September Group". "I refuse to believe that a little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam does not have a breaking point," Kissinger stated. "It shall be the assignment of the [September] group to examine the option of a savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam. You start without any preconceptions at all". The president, he told them, wanted a "military plan designed for maximum impact on the enemy's military capability" in order to "force a rapid conclusion" to the war.

Nixon subsequently announced that if by November 1 the North Vietnamese did not agree to compromise on American terms, Nixon would "take measures of great consequence and force". Should these threats fail to move Moscow to persuade Hanoi to compromise, then the second phase of the military escalation option would begin: dramatic, sudden military pressure.

November 1st 1969 came and went, and matters did not come to a head until April 25 1972 at a meeting in the Executive Office Building - long after Kissinger had discarded the secret plan. Because the nuclear option was still on President Nixon's mind as he agonized about how to respond to the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive. Kissinger has started the meeting by laying out a variety of options for stepping up the war effort, such as attacking power plants and docks. "I'd rather use the nuclear bomb," Nixon responded. "That, I think, would just be too much," Kissinger replied. "The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you?" Nixon asked. "I just want you to think big".

The following month, the biggest escalation of the war since 1968 - Operation Duck Hook was announced. And political expediency triumphed again because Nixon really needed a "big trophy" to prevent certain defeat at the polls. During the re-election campaign, Nixon could tell voters that "America's long national nightmare was over".

In 1837, the U.S. Senate finally chooses a new President of the United States, and it is not any of the candidates who had contested the issue in the House.

Compromise Candidate by Eric LippsIn the weeks since the Senate convened for the first time in history to choose a president, acting under the provision of the U.S. Constitution that it perform this task if the House of Representatives proves unable to reach a majority decision on the issue, it has become clear that neither Acting President Andrew Jackson nor his remaining opponent, South Carolina's John Calhoun, can receive a majority vote, since too many supporters of former candidate Daniel Webster are unwilling to vote for either man.

"Only in these United States have we so refined democracy that the people's will as to who should occupy the Chief Magistracy may be divined by their elected representatives"Therefore, leaders of the Whigs, Federalists, and Democratic-Republican parties have worked out a compromise, agreeing on the famously nonpartisan Gen. Winfield Scott for president. Scott is deemed an expedient choice with the nation at war once more with Great Britain.

Jackson bows to this bargain and urges his supporters to accept it gracefully, stating, "Better that someone, even though not myself, be given the tenure, than that matters remain as they have been, with the highest office occupied on an ad hoc basis". Southerners, however, are furious when their favorite Calhoun is not awarded even the vice-presidency, which goes instead to the 64-year-old Gov. William Henry Harrison of Indiana. In a subsequent deal, therefore, Gen. Scott is persuaded to make Calhoun his Secretary of War upon assuming the presidency. Left unstated is that Scott's age opens the possibility that his lifetime tenure will be a short one, and that once the office of the president is again vacant Calhoun can seek it again.

Among the populace, reaction to Scott's election is mixed. The General is an authentic military hero of the War of 1812, but his selection seemingly from nowhere rankles. An editorial in the New York Sun tabloid newspaper will state: "Only in these United States have we so refined democracy that the people's will as to who should occupy the Chief Magistracy may be divined by their elected representatives not merely without consulting the people but without regard to the existing list of candidates among whom those representatives had formerly been selecting. "In the South, the "disrespect" allegedly shown Calhoun fuels secessionist sentiment, never quite extinguished following the so-called "nullification crisis " of 1832, in which the then-Senator had played a prominent role.

In 1804, on this day the select group of U.S. Army volunteers commissioned by President Jefferson as a "Corps of Discovery" departed from Camp Dubois, St. Louis. Led by Second Lieutenant William Clark, the expeditionaries travel to St Charles where they met up with their Commander, Captain Meriwether Lewis.

Lewis and Clark ExpeditionThey followed the Missouri River, making their way westward, headed for the continental divide through to the Pacific coast. But they only got as far as the Platte River in Central Nebraska where they were intercepted by agents of the Viceroyalty of New Spain [1].

They were taken to Sante Fe, Chihuahua and questioned by the governor [2]. Although the primary objective of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was to explore and map the newly acquired territory of Louisiana, their written orders revealed other secondary objectives. Because the only possible reason for finding a practical route across the Western half of the continent was to establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.

Although neither country sought conflict, the imprisonment of the American created a tense diplomatic dispute between the United States and Spain. It was only resolved by the payment of damages, an embarrassment that forced Secretary of States James Madison to withdraw his candidacy from the Presidential election of 1808.

In 1954, the Wehrmacht General who destroyed the Allied beachhead at Dunkirk Heinz Guderian died on this day in Schwangau, Allgäu. He was sixty-five years old.

Death of "Fast Heinz"His panzer group had led the "race to the sea" that split the Allied armies in two, depriving the French armies and the British Expeditionary Force in Northern France and Belgium of their fuel, food, spare parts and ammunition. Concerned about over-extension, members of High Command advised caution. And although their recommendation of a "Halt Order" was overruled by the Führer, they were to be proven right. Because the Massacre [of Allied Forces] at Dunkirk resulted in horrific German casualties and a dramatic loss of armour.

With the recriminations flying fast and furious in the bloody aftermath, Guderian not only blamed the leadership above him but also repeated a number of self-serving lies that alienated him from his colleagues. He was demoted to a junior position in a military training college where he served out the remainder of the war.

In 1868, on this day Tokugawa shogunate forces defeated an Imperial Army commanded by Satsuma and Ōgaki at the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle.

Battle of Utsunomiya CastleThe Shogunate had been retreating north towards the Aizu, a domain which had previously advocated surrender and peaceful negotiation first and resistance second. But the entrance of a massive number of loyalists forced its hand firmly into the realm of armed resistance.

And then a peasants revolt had enabled the forces commanded by the Tokugawa retainer Ōtori Keisuke to occupy Utsunomiya; they promptly emptied out the rice stored in the castle and handed it out to the townsfolk. Four days later, an Imperial Army swept up in a northeastward direction over the Mibu-kaidō road and launched an unsuccessful counterattack.

The combinations of result was a set back to the nobles and young samurai who were seeking to return political power to the imperial court. And the Boshin War was far from over.

In AD 33, after witnessing the risen Jesus being taken up to heaven in his resurrected body, Mary Magdalene embarked upon her own Odyssey, carrying the original written revelation to the West Coast of Ireland where THE TRUTH would remain concealed by Patricius and his followers for almost two millenia.

A beautiful poem written by the hand of GodMeanwhile the other companions of Jesus set out upon a somewhat different mission. Deprived of the original written revelation, they feared that oral tradition would result in THE TRUTH being lost altogether within a few short decades. Equally convinced that Judaism had misread its own history, they soon focused on the task of authoring a Christian Scripture which would comprise both the New Testament revelation and also a super-sized preamble of aspects of the Old Testament Writings.

It was pretty good, but the discovery in Ireland proved the old truism that nothing beats the original.

In 1939, U.S. President Gerald L. K. Smith announced the federalization of the Boy and Gorl Scouts under the umbrella of a new organization dubbed the Young Patriots of America.
Americanism by Eric LippsYounger members were to receive intensive instruction in "Americanism," including daily religious classes, along with rigorous physical training. Older ones, particularly teenagers from the former Explorer Scouts - now renamed the Young Defenders - would receive combat training to prepare them to battle "foreign invaders and domestic terrorists and subversives".
The Young Patriots would play an active role alongside adult police, paramilitaries from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, and regular military forces during the Purification following passage of the Christian Faith Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1940.

In 2004, at the movie premier of "Escape from Baghdad", John McCain admitted to blaxploitation actor Barry Obama that he himself "could never look as cool" as the fictional President Cliff Robertson.

Escape from BaghdadUnlike the jumpy Presidents played by Donald Pleasance and Stacy Keach in the first two movies, the "King of Cool" maintains his composure throughout the film. Even when Air Force One crashes outside the Green Zone, and Snake Plissken (played by Kurt Russell) is once again sent in to rescue the US President from certain death.

And this time, Plissken faces a new and insidious challenge in the form of the mysterious company Blackwater International. Their sinister CEO Eric Prince (played by Robert Downey, Jr) attempts to cover-up the failure of his private security contractors to protect Robertson from falling into the hands of Iraqi extremists.

In a dramatic final scene, the two meet; Robertson says "I thought you were dead?" to which Plissken responds with his signature put-down "I thought you were taller?".
Click to Watch Trailer of Escape from New York

In 1863, on this day in Mississippi, the two Corps of the Army of the Tennessee led by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant were defeated by the six thousand men of the Jackson City Garrison which was under the command of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston.

Confederate Victory at Jackson CityThe Confederate win at the Battle of Jackson prevented the Siege of Vicksburg, prolonging the war in the west, while the Union won at the Battle of Gettysburg. .

Both of these victories meant the continuing success of each government, and prolongs the war into a bloodier war in the once united nation. Fearing that the war would soon involve other nations, the United Kingdom and France get involved as an intermediaries, leading to a ceasefire and the conclusion of the Civil War. Both the United States and the Confederate States would sign the Treaty of London, which recognized the Confederate States as an independent nation. Not until 1947, though, would the United States recognize the southern states as anything but a part of the US but under a rogue government.

From the two Americas thread on Alt WikiaUnited States:

Without the burden of the Reconstruction of the southern states, the United States progressed in technology and domestic prowess. The states became bound with a sense of destiny and greatness. The borders were wide open to anyone who would come through in good faith. In the twentieth century they would gain tremendous financial power in the world.

Confederate States:

For the rest of the nineteenth century the new nation would seek recognition from the rest of the world while being denied it at home. The Confederate States would become strong militarily, while simultaneously becoming the 'breadbasket of the world' with its strong agricultural base. The states acted in union, but each was sovereign over its internal affairs. Interstate commerce was largely in goods and services, with international commerce mostly in the export of food and textile goods. They would mostly be dependent on imports for any technological advances.

Soviet Union:

With both the Confederate States and the United States not developing into a major power as two separate entities, the Soviet Union was able to become the sole superpower, superseding the United Kingdom. With less resistance on the Soviet bloc, more nations becoming communist and the Soviet Union shows no signs of collapsing. There is still a defiant border between the democratic and capitalist world, and the communist world.