In 1081, on this day the Normans of southern Italy under Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria were defeated at the gates of Dyrrhachium, the Byzantine capital of Illyria.

Byzantine Victory at the Battle of DyrrhachiumFollowing the Norman conquest of Byzantine Italy and Saracen Sicily, the Byzantine emperor, Michael VII Doukas had betrothed his son to Guiscard's daughter. But when Michael was deposed, Robert took this as an excuse to invade the Byzantine Empire in 1081.

His army laid siege to Dyrrhachium, but his fleet was defeated by the Venetians. On October 18, the Normans engaged a Byzantine army under Alexius I Comnenus outside Dyrrhachium. The battle began with the Byzantine right wing routing the Norman left wing, which broke and fled. This introduced an unexpected new danger of separation because Varangian mercenaries launched an ill-disciplined pursuit of the fleeing Normans, but fortunately Commanders Alexius I Comnenus and George Palaeologus were able to rein them in and restore order to the Byzantine Army.

In 1919, on this day Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born in Montreal, Quebec.

Trudeaumania LiteHis predecessor Lester B. Pearson brought him into the centre of Federal Government to serve as a "Wise Man" during the development of the Quebec Crisis. But he did far more than participate in the national debate, he used his base in Montreal to seize control of the Liberal Party and emerged as a controversial, charismatic leader, inspiring "Trudeaumania". He served as the fifteen Prime Minister of Canada for eleven years until he met his nemesis at the ballot box.

Because by the later seventies, a formidable rival appeared in the form of Peter Lougheed. As the Premier of Alberta, he was hugely reluctant to leave regional politics, but was persuaded by the party base to enter the race and succeed Robert Stanfield when he stood down in 1976. Gifted with charisma, he had become regional leader in 1967, going on to win a majority government in 1971, ending 36 years of unbroken Socred rule in the province. And as the national leader of the Federal Progressive Conservative Party he won a landslide victory at the 1979 election, and Trudeau's career came to an abrupt end. Because within a year, Quebec voted for secession and Trudeaumania became a distant memory.

In 1956, on this day British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was informed that Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy had secretly request refuge at Harmincad utca 6, the address of the British Embassy in Budapest.

Conjoined Crisis Part 1
Imre Nagy requests refugeAs the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary, he was locked in a power struggle with the Kremlin, and it appeared that his determined opposition to Soviet-imposed policies had ended in failure. He might have expected a sympathetic hearing from the British Government, but there was a major problem that he knew absolutely nothing about. That was that the British Government had secretly signed an agreement with France and Israeli to imminently seize the Suez Canal, and if necessary, eject the troublesome Egyptian President Abdul Gamel Nasser from power.

Therefore, Eden was suddently presented with both a threat, and also an opportunity. Should he assist Nagy, then of course he would be openly accused of the basest of hypocrisy, because his own regime-changing imperial belligerence would appeare so similiar to the Soviets. Because a non-response was itself inconceivable, members of the secret service were pressing him to make the most of this situation by opening negotiations with the Soviets, essentially to betray Nagy in exchange for non-interference in Egpyt. This deal was sweetened as a spheres of influence paradigm, Middle East vs Central Europe and initially, Eden seemed quite opened to such a suggestion.
An article from the Conjoined Crisis thread.

In 1941, on this day fortunes in the decade-long Great Patriotic War unexpectedly swung in favour of the armed Russian Partisans when a Luftwaffe Heinkel bomber operating east of Moscow scored a direct hit on the special train carrying the hopelessly incompetent Soviet leadership out of the abandoned capital.

Tipping PointThree days before the expectation that the Wehrmacht would enter the city had thrown the Capital into panic. By then not only had Stalin himself been forced to accept the view of the Muscovite population, but he had been infected by their panic, sitting at his desk in the Kremlin asking himself again and again, "What shall we do? What shall we do?".

Even though the war with Germany was no surprise to Stalin, he had no answer to this rhetorical question. Instead he signalled that all was lost by boarding a special train two days later, surely a cruel metaphor of the reversal of Soviet fortune. And a contrasting mirror image of the triumphant arrival in St Peterberg, which Stalin himself acknowledged with his bitter parting words, "Lenin left us a great legacy, and we have fucked it up".

In contrast, as the Wehrmacht occupied the major urban centres east of the Volga, Hitler was triumphant, having every reason to believe that he had defeated the Soviet Union. Although the Red Army had ceased to offer any centralised organized resistance, in the mountains of the North Caucasus and the forests of Russia, Belorussia and the Ukraine, armed partisan groups soon began to form. By the following summer the Wehrmacht would be fighting a vicious guerrilla war against a new and insiduous enemy which roamed across the terrifying vastness of German-Occupied Russia.

In 1912, on this day Serbia refuses to yield in Albania. With the growth of nationalism in the course of the nineteenth century, ancient empires began to split along the seams of peoples that had been stitched together by rule of force for centuries.

Serbia Refuses to Yield in Albania The Holy Roman Empire had disintegrated, much of it becoming reborn as the German Empire. Italy reunited after some 1500 years since the Romans. Later, in the Balkans, the various peoples of the mountainous peninsula began to erupt against centuries-long Ottoman domination.

A new story by Jeff ProvineNations like Romania and Serbia had successfully broken away from the Ottomans, while the neighboring empire of the Austrian-Hungarians had pushed administration upon Bosnia-Herzegovina to bring it to a more European rule. Bulgaria stood ready to unite the Bulgars under their Tsar Ferdinand, having set up a state of their own in 1878.

The "Great Powers" of Europe, the dominant empires in the world, scanned the political situation and waiting for opportunities to conduct influence toward their goals. Russia stood ready to expand into a pan-Slavic rule, uniting the Balkans under their sphere and gaining significant ports. Austria-Hungary wanted to keep the balance with the Ottomans, using them as a pendulum to guide Serbian nationalism away from imperial lands. Germany and France both wanted influence in the eastern Mediterranean, the former with the Ottomans as a puppet state and the latter with political control in the Levant.

Modernist thought struck the Ottoman Empire at home with the Young Turk movement pushing a new constitution in 1908. Struggles between Bulgarian/Greek freedom fighters and the Ottoman army in Macedonia had continued since 1904, but now was the time for action. Bulgaria named its tsar, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Italy began the path for victory in the Italo-Turkish War in 1911, gaining much of the Ottoman Mediterranean territories.

In 1912, war would spread like plague through Eastern Europe. With the Turks falling to Italian forces, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro rose up as the Balkan League. Austria-Hungary was uncomfortable at seeing their counterpart begin to fall and hoped to reign in the battles by declaring an ultimatum against Serbian troops that had pushed south into Albania. The Serbs reportedly "spat" at the ultimatum and continued their liberation and division of Balkan territory among the League.

German Kaiser Wilhelm II had vowed support to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and, with such imperial clout, the Austrians joined the Balkan War against the League. In response, the Russians excitedly went to war in support of the League they had helped establish. France and Britain both took up neutral positions despite France's longtime alliance with Russia and Britain's not-so-secret unease at any Russian expansion, which had been seen in the Crimean War only decades before.

In the German Imperial War Council of December 8, it was realized that the fitness of the German army was not what the Kaiser had hoped, and victory would not be quick. The Austrians found themselves simply holding fronts against Russia and the Balkan League. While the first two years of war were grim, Germany and Austria arose in 1914 with a huge military push through Poland. Russians pursued scorched earth, but the speed of the German army checked their age-old tactic. Hundreds of thousands of Russians would die as the Germans marched toward Moscow before the Czar called for armistice.

In the south, Austria found itself stretched and finally broken. The empire collapsed into anarchy that even anti-Serbian sentiment could not resolve. At the Treaty of London in 1917, a new eastern Europe was drawn up. Many new nations stood independent: Albania, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belorussia, and Lithuania. Much weakened, Russia erupted into civil war between Communist and Tsarist factions that lasted until foreign Allied troops settled the matter in the favor of the Tsar in 1919, with the new independent nation of Ukraine being founded. The Ottoman Empire, too, would succumb to the rash of revolution through the 1920s that were said to be akin to those of the 1790s and 1840s. Nationalism broke up the empire, which caused the Great Powers to grab influence in the Middle East where they could.

The twentieth century would see effective reform of the imperial system, guaranteeing more social rights, but the overall rule of monarchs balancing one another continued. Some said that the settling of the Eastern Question saved the kings of Europe, but many historians scoff at the idea of a war so vicious that it would cause the end of constitutional monarchy as Europe's inherent political system.

In 1963, on this day at the sixtieth International Olympic Committee Session in Baden-Baden, West Germany, Detroit finished ahead of bids from Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Lyon to host the Games of the XIX Olympiad.
Watch The Detroit You've Never Met on Youtube

Blind PigsThe contrived image of a multi-ethnic metropolis of brotherhood was shattered by the deadliest and most destructive riots in American history occurring less than twelve months before the opening ceremony was scheduled to begin.

The precipitating event began on the corner of 12th and Clairmount streets when police raided an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a "blind pig" in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The violence escalated immediately as the police initiated confrontations with patrons and also observers.

The African American State Senator Coleman A. Young arrived in the city's Near West Side hoping to reduce tensions on both sides by serving as an arbitrator. Suggested by Stéphane DumasMeanwhile, higher authorities had already disregarded peaceful solutions and determined that force was required. Accordingly, Governor George Romney ordered the Michigan National Guard into Detroit, and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in the Army.

The tragic result was forty-three dead (including Coleman A. Young), 467 injured, over 7200 arrests, and more than 2000 buildings destroyed. The riot was prominently featured in the news media, with live television coverage, extensive newspaper reporting, and extensive stories in Time and Life magazines.

In 2009, on this day a tense seventy-hour hostage situation in the Canadian capital city ended with the bloody climax predicted by the residents of Toronto.

The War on Terror Plus, Part 5 - "Dalton Day" CrisisWith the provincial government's expenditure running over $22bn over budget, Premier Dalton McGinty had been forced to introduce the unpaid public sector worker days that had been the subject of intense controversty for many years. These "Dalton Days" had fuelled an unprecedent strike of public sector workers, leaving government facilities in a state of absolute chaos. And during the third Dalton Day, terrorists had seized key buildings, taking terrorists and threatening to explode a radiological dirty-bomb.

Elements of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command utilised robot technology that had been field-tested in the wilds of Kandahar province and seen mostly recently in action after a "nuclear suitcase" incident in Downtown Toronto.

Trade Unionists supported the pacifist view that it was the country's very involvement in the "Global War on Terror" that invited these attacks into Canadian soil. The extent to which Canada has expanded overseas military operations in recent year is evident from the greatest deployment of reserve forces since World War II. A further expansion in "homeland security and defence" funding is considered certain due to the new threats from Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear weapons combined with the political leadership's desire to gain the respect due to a "middle power" with aggressive moves in the North Pole.

The belligerence of Canadian Foreign Policy is in sharp contrast to the broad sweep of national history. During the middle years of the twentieth century, enlightened politicians such as Lester B. Pearson marginalised British imperialism during the Suez Crisis and also foiled the attempt to grant independence to White Rhodesia. Ironically, it seems likely that during a period of alignment with the new Western imperialists, Canada might weaken ties with the United Kingdom by leaving the Commonweath and declaring a Republic.

In 2009, on this day US President John S. McCain awarded a $1bn no-bid contract to the private military company Blackwater Worldwide.Dropping in to Darfur
Doubts had been raised by members of the US Congress that Blackwater employees actually were "loyal Americans" and not mercenaries in the employ of a foreign government; in fact, hard evidence had emerged of Chilean soldiers fighting in Iraq, formerly trained by Augustus Pinochet's murderous regime. Nevertheless, the President had received sufficient confidence from assurances provided by founder and sole owner, Mr Erik. D Prince following Controversy and criticism of the 100,000 privately managed, armed security contractors working in Iraq.

Speaking at Lafayette Park, across from the White House McCain put a positive spin on the announcement. America, said McCain, had a long tradition of hiring private military contractors to achieve national security. Pointing to the inscription under the statue of Wilhelm von Steuben, the President recounted how the Prussian General trained George Washington's troops at Valley Forge, Pa.:
"He gave military training and discipline to the citizen soldiers who achieved the independence of the United States".

Vice Chairman and former CIA Counterterroism Chief J. (Joseph) Cofer Black had acted in a key brokerage role to secure the no-bid contract - using his rolodex of government contacts to convince the Administration that only Blackwater had the necessary resources for the operation they had in mind. In March 2006 Black allegedly suggested at an international conference in Amman, Jordan, that Blackwater USA was ready to move towards providing security professionals up to brigade size for humanitarian efforts and low intensity conflicts. It would appear that Mr Prince would now need to deliver on some of his earlier rhetoric about creating a private battalion that could be dropped into a trouble spot anywhere around the world (Darfur was expressly mentioned by Mr Prince).

In reality, American involvement in Darfur had been likely ever since the group "Human Rights First" claimed that over 90% of the light weapons currently being imported by Sudan and used in the conflict were from China. Likely became inevitable with the emergence of further evidence of the Sudanese government's murder of civilians to actually facilitate the extraction of oil. The U.S.-funded Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, which investigated attacks in southern Sudan during 2008 concluded that "as the Government of Sudan sought to clear the way for oil exploration and to create a cordon sanitaire around the oil fields, vast tracts of the Western Upper Nile Region in southern Sudan became the focus of extensive military operations".

Ironically, the announcement concluded a six year period of demonstration against Western Governments who stood accused of blind-folding (pictured) themselves to the human tragedies resulting from the War in Darfur.

In 1933, the Nazi Party finally imploded nine months after Gustav Streseman destroyed their credibility at the disastrous State election result in Lippe-Detmold. continues from Part 3.

The Plot Against Germany 4"Club Foot" Joey Goebbels led a stage walkout of the entire left wing in the SA and also the Nazi Trade Unions into a newly formed Socialist German Workers' Party. It remained unclear whether Adolf Hitler would lead the rump or create new, ultra right-wing National German Workers' Party.

Of course the party re-organization was a matter of little immediate relevance because Chancellor von Papen was being retained in office not by the will of the voters but by an Emergency Presidential Decree. However, the ageing President Hindenburg was growing so weak that he was no longer able to even lift his military baton.

When Hindenburg finally passed away a year later, von Papen's mandate disappeared and he once again had to return to democratic processes to secure a mandate. However reluctant he might have been to work with the extremist National German Workers' Party his hand was forced because Ernst Thalmänn's Communist Party had surged passed him in the polls again and if necessary were prepared to sign an electoral pact with Goebbels and his Socialist German Workers' Party. But of course the most pressing threat was the Soviet Forces which were threatening to invade Eastern Germany. Communist rule in Germany appeared certain, the only question was whether the country would be governed from puppets in Red Star Berlin, or directly from Moscow. To be continued

In 1346, on this day David II, King of Scotland signed the Peace of Neville's Cross with his English counterpart Edward III.

Peace of Neville's CrossThe previous month, Philip VI of France had responded to the Scottish monarch's plea to invade England. Ten thousand men were despatched under a plan that would see the French Army land at Carlisle and march across country to meet the Scots West of Durham. But owing to a navigation error they landed at Glasgow instead, and thinking they're in England embark on a wave of looting, pillage and rape which leaves the city burnt to the ground.

Outraged by this atrocity, over the next few months the Scots and English quickly settle their differences and agree a union of the crowns with Edward III as king and David II as vice-king and declare war on France.

In 1806, on this day the Haitian rebel leader Dessalines survived an assassination attempt. The nation of Haiti had undergone a brutal past. Its natives had been wiped out by plagues brought by the Spanish, and its primary colonists had been pirates, specifically on the nearby island of Tortuga.

Dessalines Survives Assassination Attempt In 1664, the French West India Company formally claimed the western side of Hispaniola and established a lasting colony. Plantations grew up and prospered from the blood and sweat of African slaves.

A new story by Jeff ProvineWhen the French Revolution broke out, revolution spread to Haiti as well. Freed black men claimed rights as citizens, and war spread as planters, supported by the British, tried to keep power from the mulattoes. While the slaves gained their freedom amidst the battles, war with France arose as Napoleon moved to reconquer Haiti and rule eastern Hispaniola directly. Much of Napoleon's expedition was destroyed by disease, and the vicomte de Rochambeau fought brutal tactics of tit-for-tat atrocities with the rebel leader Dessalines until the final Battle of Vertiéres in 1803 led to French surrender.

Dessalines continued to maintain power after the war from republican ideals and even proclaimed himself Emperor Jacques I of Haiti on October 6, 1804. He went about a pogrom of massacre on the whites of the island early in his rule. Planters and the white upper class fled or faced brutal execution, leaving behind the class of gens de couleur, wealthy, darker skinned freed men, as the higher class of the island. While many called for republican reform, Dessalines held his power and imposed a system of tyranny, practical slavery, to keep the sugar and coffee plantations running to pay for the new government.

Conspiracies began to rise up against Dessalines. He had served the country well, but now he had grown consumed by his power. Henri Christophe, a military subordinate to Dessalines, began a revolt in the north with his own autocracy while gens de couleur leader Alexandre Pétion worked to champion democracy in the south. On October 17, 1806, Dessalines began the march out of Port-au-Prince where he had been containing the ideals of Pétion to put down by force the rebellion of Christophe. An ambush sprung around him, but Dessalines managed to dodge assassins' bullets, rally his men, and route the assailants.

The march to the north crushed Pétion's rebellion. While he exacted victory, Dessalines pondered how it could be that his beloved Haitians would rise up against him in an attempt of assassination. He was a hard man of sharp discipline, but that had been what allowed the defeat of Rochambeau in the fight for independence. He demanded a great deal from his people, but government was expensive, and an economy crippled without forced workers would reduce the island to poverty and anarchy.

Dessalines returned to Port-au-Prince with a parade in his honor. He met with Pétion (whom he would later execute as a member of conspiracy) and took a good deal of republican advice. Launching into a new propaganda campaign, Dessalines related to the people how hard work was necessary and vowed to ensure that payment returned to the people. The elected bureaucracy expanded to meet needs of food, clean water, housing, and health, and taxes could be paid in cash or by "voluntary" work on the state plantations. Meanwhile, Dessalines worked to fix the fear and anger of the people upon differing targets, which had worked well against the French and later all whites. He turned against the Spanish Empire, then against the "terror" of the Dominicans to the east. Later invasion would unify the island once again in 1822.

The emperor died in 1827 and was succeeded by Jean Pierre Boyer, Emperor Jean I, who would rule until his overthrow in 1843. While many hoped for a return to the liberal ideals of the revolution, the rule of the state had become ingrained over generations. Strong government held the island, working to keep Santo Domingo united under Haiti and forcing internal improvements through construction projects and public factories. For centuries to come, the island of Hispaniola would be viewed at times as a model of stability and productivity for Latin America while at other times a tropical Orwellian police state.

In 1859, a fierce firefight on the US Border between the Harper's Ferry Raiders and a company of Confederate Marines commanded by Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee brought the "two Americas" to the brink of war, perhaps as the abolitionist John Brown had intended all along.

The RaidSeventy years before, the thirteen states had been part of a single Confederation. But at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Northern Federalists had advocated an entirely different form of government. And the delegates failure to agree led to the formation of that breakway Union which was to subsequently become known as the United States of America.

If the overarching principle of disagreement was States Rights, then the burning issue itself was surely the institution of slavery. And therefore the unrestricted movement of both slaves and abolitionists raised demands for stricter border controls which of course re-opened the door on the whole contentious issue.

We can never know whether John Brown actually planned to seize weapons from the armoury and to arm a slave uprising, or whether his flight to the North was simply a spur of the moment decision. But within twelve months, a regional politician in Kentucky would use the Raid to make the case for a Re-united States of America. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

In 1940, on this day the originator of the super-hero concept, Philip Wylie sued the creators of Superman Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for plagiariasm. Wylie's own Man God was known as "The Gladiator" and had been published a decade before in 1930.

The GladiatorThe plot similiarities were of course blatantly undeniable; a father who creates a son that can jump buildings, herculean strength, growing up in a small farming town, tendency to lift up automobiles, an artic fortress and most tellingly of all, a meek attitude for their public personae.

The result of the protracted legal battle with Siegel and Shuster would have tremendous implications for the whole mileau, in a very real sense the plagiarism case became a battle for the soul of the comic book. The cheap pulp trash of superman would be forced to give way to the metaphysical reflection which was the essence of Wylie's genius. The only remaining copy of the withdrawn superman comic would appear on Hollis Mason's shelf in one panel of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen", perhaps suggesting that the Watchmen Universe was set in a timelime where Wylie did not pursue legal action.

Richard Donner's 1978 movie would feature Christopher Reeve as "The Gladiator" possessing incredible gifts but simply unable to find his place in the world. In the tragic climax, the superhero is struck by lightning whilst asking questions of God, echoeing Wylie's own religious doubts.

In 2008, today saw the nationwide release of the film biopic Al, directed by Oliver Stone.

Starring Alec Baldwin as Al Gore, the 43rd President of the United States; the film details the first few years of Gore's presidency and his rise in popularity following 9/11 and the the War in Afghanisatan which eventually saw the capture of Al-Queda chief Osama Bin-Laden, not to mention his later clashes in Congress when he introduces measures to halt global warming. Oliver Stone's movie Al is releasedIt also flashbacks to Gore's early years in Harvard and his service in Vietnam. Though Stone has made films featuring other presidential figures such as Edward Kennedy and Richard Nixon in "Teddy" and "Nixon" respectively, his latest biopic is seen as far more controversial. Stone admits in press interviews, "I really wanted to get underneath the skin of this guy, and see how he has come to be recognized as someone who is one of our greatest ever Presidents - people will be surprised at how harsh it sometimes is; I think definitely the forces inside him that resulted in certain decisions for Afghanistan and the world were there long before 9/11".

In 1961, Khrushchev informs President Kennedy that he has decided to drop his insistence on concluding a treaty with East and West Germany by the end of the year.
With the crisis apparently defused, the U.S. troops moved to Berlin earlier will return to their prior stations.Russian Roulette by Eric Lipps
A tentative agreement on a formula for a negotiated settlement regarding access right and recognition of the boundaries of the two Germanies will be reached on November 9.

It will not be enough to satisfy Kennedy's critics, who will continue to accuse the President of weakness in dealing with the Soviets. Kennedy's position is not helped by the fact that the Berlin wall remains in place.

Neither, however, is that of Premier Khrushchev. Hard-liners within the Politburo are furious with him for, as they see it, caving in to Kennedy on the treaty issue. Elements of the Soviet Communist Party and the Red Army begin scheming to overthrow Khrushchev and replace him with someone more to their liking who will 'stand up to the American imperialists.'

In 1834, from his location on the south bank of the River Thames, the celebrated English painter J.M.W. Turner sketched the burning Houses of Parliament.

Burning of the Houses of ParliamentThe summer had been unusually hot [1] and the Thames and many of its urban tributaries were overflowing with sewage. Consequently, the warm weather had encouraged bacteria to thrive and the resulting smell was so overwhelming that it affected the work of the House of Commons. Countermeasures had even included draping curtains soaked in chloride of lime.

It was hoped that heavy rain might finally ended the heat and humidity of summer and close-off the immediate crisis of the "Great Stink". But when the temperature rose further, matters became intolerable and members considered relocated upstream to Hampton Court and the law courts were evacuated to Oxford and St Albans.

A House of Commons select committee was appointed to report on the Stink and recommend how to end the problem. But the wider consideration of the fire hazard entered the deliberations, and it was decided to abandon the premises. And two months later, the buildings were burnt to the ground. This disaster presented an opportunity for new thinking, to build a forum for London (later known as the Metropolitan Board of Works) based upon an amphitheatre that could adequately seat all members [2]. But instead the development of the first local government entity for London away from the permanent national seat in Hampton Court would have long-term implications for the devolution of power. Because the assembly would be built upon the old site of the Palace of Westminster on the north bank of the Thames. The implications of this location came into sharp contest with the failed attempt to close the Greater London Council in the early 1980s [3].

In 456 AD, on this day Emperor Avitus was extremely fortunate to retain the mastery of the Western Roman Empire by securing Visigoth assistance to defeat Magister militum Ricimer at Piacenza.

Visigoth Relief at PiacenzaIt was a remarkable turnaround because the imperial position had become untenable - after a failed campaign, the Vandals had blockaded Rome. But fortunately for Avitus, King Theodoric had recently returned from his own campaign in Spain [1] and agreed to provide Visigoth reinforcements that saved the City.

A representative of a Gallic-Roman aristocracy, he opposed the reduction of the Western Roman Empire to Italy alone, both politically and from the administrative point of view. For this reason, as Emperor he introduced several Gallic senators in the Imperial administration; this policy, however, was opposed by both the Senatorial aristocracy and by the people of Rome, which had suffered because of the Vandalic sack of the city in 455.

In 1886, leading political officer of the Greater Zionist Resistance (GZR) David Grün (David Green) was born on this day in Płońsk, Congress Poland.

Cast a Giant ShadowFollowing the assassination of Astrid Pflaume in 1935, he emerged as the de facto leader of the GZR. Under the iron-like grip of his leadership the movement grew even stronger, giving the neo-Nazis little choice but to begin shuttling weapons of the future into the past. And within a decade, the tide had turned and the Zionists were fighting for their lives in a strip of land in Free Poland. Tragically, it was a far cry from his trademark greeting "Next year, in Jerusalem!".

In the Free World, Green was perhaps most famous for the iconic images (pictured) of him serving as a pragmatic mentor to the former United States Army colonel David Daniel "Mickey" Marcus who disobeyed orders from President Lindbergh to assist the GZR during this calamitous period. When he perished in the fall of Warsaw, Green personally wrote the letter of commiserations to his wife in New York City, noting "Emma, he was the best man we had". But against the odds, Green himself survived until December 1973, living to the ripe old age of 87 in Lower East Side New York, not far from the home of the Marcuses.
Part one of the novel can be downloaded here and continues as a thread on this site.

In 1758, on this day the fourth US Attorney General Noah Webster, Jr. was born in West Hartford to an established Yankee family; his father, Noah Sr. was a descendant of Connecticut Governor John Webster; his mother Mercy (née Steele) was a descendant of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Alexander's CourtDuring the American Revolutionary War his studies were interrupted and he served in the Connecticut Militia while reading Law at Yale College. After graduation, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace and continued his legal studies under the mentorship of the future Senator and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth. He also adopted a strong political vision in this period of his life.

Although he had married well and joined the elite in Hartford, he did not have much money. But in 1793, his fortunes changed when Alexander Hamilton lent him $1500 to move to New York City to edit the leading Federalist Party newspaper. When Hamilton assumed the Presidency, he naturally chose Webster to succeed Charles Lee as Attorney General. After he leaving office, he would win his mentor's seat and serve for many years as US Senator from Connecticut.

In 1859, on this day a group of raiders led by the Northern abolitionist John Brown seized the coastal fortification located in Charleston Harbor sending the Federal soldiers away in small boats.

Siege of Fort SumterWith merchant shipping diverting to safer ports, the immediate lost of commerce forced the South Carolina Militia to launch a strike on Federal Property that would be viewed as an Act of War by US President Matthew C. Perry.

In fact the complete surprise achieved by the raiders was due to Allan Pinkerton's tight control of operational security. Brought into Brown's confidence as security enforcer, he had soon discovered that the original plan to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry had been compromised such that it was unlikely they would achieve their goal of arming freemen and slaves to create a general servile insurrection.