In 1718, on this day the most talented officer in the Royal Navy, Captain Edward Teach was lost off the coast of North Carolina.

Death of Captain Edward TeachBorn in Britain's second city in 1680, the 17th-century rise of Britain's American colonies and the rapid 18th-century expansion of the Atlantic slave trade had made Bristol an important international sea port. And naturally, he enrolled in his earliest teenage years.

He came to the attention of the Admiralty as a result of his daredevil exploits in the intense fighting of Queen Anne's War. And although he was considered unorthodox, he was finally rewarded with the Captaincy of the vessel HMS Queen Anne's Revenge, but tragically died during a storm at Teach's Cove.

In 1975, Otto von Habsburg was declared Head of State in accordance with the wishes of the late Francisco Franco.

Otto von Habsburg, King of SpainBecause in 1961, the Spanish dictator had offered to make him king of Spain after his own death. A branch of the Habsburg had ruled the country from 1506-1700 and so a valid (if some tenuous) claim existed based on historical precedent. However, Franco's concern was maintaining his own legacy by preventing the ascension of Juan Carlos.

But of course the Carlist and Alfonsian branches of the Royal Family both contested the succession which received only half hearted supported from the people of Spain. Within a very short space of time, it became clear that the country was heading for a disastrous second Civil War if von Habsburg could not safely navigate the nation towards a democratic safe haven.

In 1963, during the course of a New York taxi ride, Richard M. Nixon learns that his opponent in the Presidential Election John F. Kennedy has been assassinated. In an article for Readers Digest he recalled hailing a cab after his Dallas-New York flight: "We were waiting for a light to change when a man ran over from the street corner and said that the President had just been shot in Dallas" (however in a subsequent article for Esquire he later said that his cabbie "missed a turn somewhere and we were off the highway .. a woman came out of her house screaming and crying. I rolled down the cab window to ask what the matter was and when she saw my face she turned even paler. She told me that John Kennedy had just been shot in Dallas").

Kennedy's Heir
By Ed, Jacke Rose, Chris Oakley & Eric OppenHowever there would be no political comeback; he had already told the press that "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference". Because in order to establish commitment with doubtful Californian voters, he had pledged not to run for president in 1964 at the launch of his gubernatorial campaign. But even if he had not, he believed it would be difficult to defeat Kennedy, or after his assassination, Kennedy's successor Lyndon Johnson. And after his defeat at the hands of liberal Pat Brown, he had retreated into private life, recently becoming a senior partner in the leading New York law firm Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander.

Instead, at the climax of the ugliest Convention in fifty years Republicans selected the conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. And "because he drives Johnson nuts" his running mate would be an obscure Congressman from Western New York, William E. Miller. Of course none of these politicians were natural vote winners who could match Kennedy for charisma and vision. The only individual who could begin to match those attributes was the Mayor of New York City, John V. Lindsay (pictured). Of course by the time that he entered the White House in 1969, the scandals of the Kennedy-Johnson administration had tarnished the "Camelot" years. More damaging was the revelations about the true purpose of Nixon's visit to Dallas. He had met with Pepsi-Cola executives with big business interests in the sugar plantantions in Cuba. Due to Nixon's prominent role as a leading campaign organizer during his Presidential race, the full exposure of "the Bay of Pigs thing" created waves during Lindsay's first year in office.
This post is an article from the Jamaica Bay thread developed by Chris Oakley.

In 1963, the Presidential Emergency Succession Act was invoked for the first time when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas (the suspected assassin, ex-Marine turned Communist Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself gunned down in a movie theater while trying to elude police).

A Shock To The System Part 3Secret Service agents on the ground in the Dallas area at the time JFK was shot immediately whisked the First Lady and her family back to Washington while additional teams of agents were helicoptered in from Fort Worth to guard Kennedy's vice-president and successor Lyndon Johnson as he took the oath of office to become the 36th President of the United States; the new chief executive wasted no time ordering a full-scale investigation to determine how someone could have gotten close enough to shoot and kill Kennedy; within less than six weeks after taking office Johnson signed an executive order mandating tougher training for all future incoming Secret Service personnel.


By 1965 President Johnson had successfully lobbied Congress for a 50 percent increase in funding for all PESA-related operations by the Justice and Treasury Departments.

In 1963, absolutely no later than forty-five minutes after the Kennedy assassination, prime suspect Lee Harvey Oswald was quietly apprehended on East 10th Street in Oak Cliff by patrolman J. D. Tippit, a thirty-nine year old officer with the Dallas Police Department.

Poor Dump Cop #1 By E and Jackie SpeelWithin hours, he was charged by indictment with the murder of the President. However the Dallas Police struggled to reconstruct the timescale of events.

Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig stated that when he heard the news that Oswald had been arrested, he noted the time was 1:06 p.m. according to his watch. But according to his housekeeper Earlene Roberts, Oswald arrived at his rooming house, at 1026 North Beckley Avenue at 1.00pm, leaving 3 to 4 minutes later. Although Mrs Roberts testified that he was "walking pretty fast", the Police estimation of Oswald's walking speed demonstrated that one of the longer routes to the scene of the arrest took 17 minutes and 45 seconds.

Soon after his capture Oswald encountered reporters in a hallway, declaring "I didn't shoot anyone" and "They're taking me in because of the fact I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy!". Matters were further complicated when Officer Tippit filed his report which stated that the man in the hallway was not the man that he had arrested, a testimony backed up by a witness, William W. Scoggins who was sitting in his taxicab nearby.

A World War 2 veteran of the US 17th Airborne Division, Tippit was earning a salary of $5,880 a year as a Dallas police officer and also working two other part-time jobs. But before the year was out he would be forced out of the Dallas Police by an FBI whispering campaign that he was a "Poor Dumb Cop". Yet it would be far more difficult to silence Oswald who was amassing a pile of unpleasantly awkward facts that he would openly shared on his day in court.

In 1963, on this day at 11.40am Central Standard Time senior members of the Texas Democratic Party greeted Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline as they stepped off a private jet at the Love Field Airport in Dallas.

Tragedy in Dallas By Ed & Scott PalterRefusing to be trapped in the shameful anonymity of that private hell reserved for failed Presidential candidates, Kennedy had carefully nurtured his profile and status as a national politician. And therefore he was more than pleased to assist the Texas Democratic Party when they appealed for his charismatic assistance. Accordingly, he would shore up support for the 1964 elections by leading this campaign swing through the cities of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth.

Unknown to the Party, and despite his radiating youthful good looks and general well-being, Kennedy was a desperately sick man. A lifelong series of medical setbacks had been crowned by a recent back injury that required him to wear a corset. The whole trip would be a miserable discomfort in which he would constantly suffer acute pain.

Neverthless, Kennedy had done much more than make the most of his remaining active years, in fact he had built a travelling circus, roaming around the country like King Arthur, creating a mobile Camelot if you will. Inevitably, he had become a victim of his own success, not just a campaigning spearhead for the Democratice National Committee but a focal point of opposition to President Nixon. And when Nixon cancelled the Bays of Pigs operation and disbanded the exiles, Kennedy's radiance had drawn that angered reaction like a moth to a flame, and he unwittingly became their champion in the Senate. Elevated from pin-up boy to advocate, Kennedy was now a moving target. And the worse fears of his family were realised when a former marine, Lee Harvey Oswald shot him dead in Dallas for his anti-Castro stance.

Within eight years, the wheel would come full circle. Even before the 1964 re-election of Nixon, Castro was himself killed during an abortive coup attempt led by Che Guavera. Faced with a long multi-sided civil war the Organization of American states with help from the US Navy landed Latin american troops to restore peace and free elections. Long before then, Raoul Castro had quit the island, leading one hundred thousand followers into exile in East Germany. And Nixon would be succeeed by President Robert Kennedy who would embrace this new administration by making the strategic decision to unlock Cuban economic potential by returning their biggest port, Guatanemo Bay.

In 1934, on this day a border clash in Abyssinia raised the first significant challenge to the authority of world government since the League of Nations had been formed to co-ordinate a global response to the Spanish Flu Epidemic.

Walwal incidentIn this post-imperial era, the collapse of Colonial Power had created great dangers, and also opportunities outside of Europe.

A messianic figure had arisen in Ethiopia, Ras Tafari who had set about restablishing order in the former Italian Colony. But the megalomaniac crackpot Benito Mussolini and military officers of the defunct Kingdom of Italy declared a Fascist survivor state around the oasis of Welwel. And the fierce reaction of Ethiopian forces led to the first major conflict in over a decade.

In 1307, on this day the Knights Templar gain a new crusade. Since the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187, the Knights Templar had been in decline. They fought on through the crusades in the losing fight to keep Christian kings in the Holy Land.

Knights Templar Gain New Crusade Their monastic headquarters stood at Acre and cities in the north for a century, but Moslem troops forced them off the mainland to Cyprus. The stronghold there fell in 1302 to the Mamluks, and the Templars had lost their mission. What to do with the Templars stood as the question of the day.

A new story by Jeff ProvinePope Clement V, newly appointed in 1305, offered the suggestion of merging the Knights Templar with the Knights Hospitaller, who were forming up a monastic state in Rhodes as the Teutonic Knights had in Prussia. Both Grand Masters of the two orders ultimately rejected the idea, but, while the discussions were carried out in France, the pope also discussed charges of heresy and corruption that had been brought against the Knights Templar. While questionable, the allegations stood, and the pope sent a letter to the French king Philip IV to investigate. Philip, who was gravely indebted to the Knights Templar in the funding for his wars against England and Flanders, saw this as an opportunity to eliminate the would-be bankers.

On October 13, 1307, Philip gave the order to arrest dozens of top Templars, but Grand Master Jacques de Molay escaped secretly. Over the coming weeks, false confessions of idolatry and sinful rituals would be torn from the Templars under torture. Philip pressured Clement V to give an order that the rest of the Templars be arrested and convicted; with the Order gone, Philip's debts would be struck out. However, the network of Grand Master de Molay enabled the Templar to gain the attention of the pope. Even as Clement had moved the papacy to France, the Templars could protect him from Philip's military, and what the Order needed was a new goal. After much discussion, it was decided that the Order would purify itself and begin a quest to establish an alliance with the Mongols (believed to be descended from influence from the mythical eastern Christian king Prester John). Clement V, much to the chagrin of Philip, gave the papal bull entitled Nova Templarae on November 22. The renewed Templar Order would soon announce a new crusade.

In 1305, Oljeitu of the Ilkhanate in Persia had sent an embassy to Clement, Philip, and the English king Edward I to attempt a military alliance, but distractions in Europe had slowed plans. Now with the Templars freed by selling off their many monastic assets, including Philip's debt (which was purchased by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII, giving a considerable boost to the political clout of the House of Luxembourg), the Templars began to piece together their Tenth Crusade. Consulting with the aged Crusader-historian Jean de Joinville as well as the famed merchant Marco Polo, whose book had described Prester John as the Mongol's foster father, the Templars set out exploring eastward on a northern route through the Black Sea and across Christian Armenia to begin contact.

By 1312, the Tenth Crusade had been launched. Simultaneous attacks from Ilkhanate Mongols in the northeast with Crusaders backed by mercenaries from the Caucasus in the northwest pushed Mamluks back into Egypt. Within a generation, the Holy Land was in the hands of the Crusaders once again, and the remainder of Egypt was now a vassal to the Mongols. In the 1340s, however, the Black Plague broke out through the Middle East and spilled into Europe. The plague was taken as a sign of punishment for drafting an alliance with unchristian fellows.

Breaking off relations with the east, Europe turned toward itself under the emboldened leadership of the Church, working to purge the ideas that past Crusaders had carried back with them and the dangerous readings of pagan science and literature from ancient Romans and Greeks. In the next century, a rebirth of allegiance to the Church would be conducted by Orders such as the Templars, still ruling out of Jerusalem until its fall to the Ottomans in 1467. Encouraged by trade and conquest, the Ottoman Empire launched its invasion of barbaric Italy in 1543 under Suleiman the Magnificent. Northern Europe would resist for centuries, holding back Muslim imperialism with renewed feudalism, despite the great militaristic might brought forward by Ottoman mastery of gunpowder and cannon.

In 1945, despite the Infamous Lava Man being too far gone for current re-animation technology to succeed, the alien scientists at the Secret Nazi Base in New Swabia, Antartica did manage to bring Adolf Hitler back to life although admittedly he was hopelessly insane.

Back to LifeAlthough in its infancy at the time, the technology advanced even further over the course of the next thirty-six years. Which was fortunate, because Ronald Wilson Reagan had unwisely ignored the advice of the Secret Service who urged him to reconsider his personal safety given the frequent number of recent assassination attempts on the President.

Inevitably, just sixty-nine days after taking office when he was once again in public view and thus the easiest of targets, Reagan was shot dead through the heart by John Hinckley, Jr. Waking up at the George Washington University Hospital surrounded by alien scientists, he joked "I hope you're all Republicans!". Increasingly unable to distinguish between the Soviet and alien threats, he later alluded to the event somewhat obiquely at the United Nations on 21st September 1987. Click to watch the alien threat speech

In sharp contract to the Gipper's effusiveness however, the Fuehrer's own ill-tempted gratitude was restricted to a brief pause in which he expressed his thanks (pictured) before his maniac attention turned to fixing up his crashed Haunebu-type Nazi saucer craft. During the repair process, sabotage soon emerged as the suspected cause of the "Repulsine" engine failure.

Despite their successful attempt to kill Hitler, the American saboteurs were rapidly reaching the Fuehrer's same conclusion that world war with the Soviet Union was a necessity if Western Civilization was to be saved from Bolshevism. And somewhat alarmingly, when Reagan began to mutter about the Soviet Union being an "evil empire", it was discovered that the alien scientists had made unauthorised use of Hitler's biological material as spare parts needed to effect the repair work.

In 1963, at the conclusion of a business trip to Dallas, ex-Vice President Richard M. Nixon was shot and killed as he prepared to board a private jet at Love Field Airport; his sharp-shooting assassin was former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald.

Nixon shot in DallasAfter representing two American companies, Studebaker and Pepsi Cola he had unwisely agreed to meet with a cabal of right-wing businessmen who urged him to run for President. Judging that the incumbent President was unbeatable, he dismissed the offer of campaign funds even though it was suggested that Kennedy would not be running in 1964 after all.
Click to watch the scene from the movie Nixon (1995)

The unwelcome reminder of Nixon's unpredictability combined with his haughty attitude panicked the conspirators into cancelling the hit on Kennedy and silencing Nixon instead.

In 1963, on this day out-going Lyndon Baines Johnson, President of the Confederate States of America, (pictured, left) is assassinated in Dallas whilst travelling in a presidential limousine along a designated motorcade route.

Gerry Shannon's "Johnson Assassinated by Union Sympathizer"Johnson had been doing a tour of his home state to drum up support for the policies of his Democratic-Republican party; and unite it's warring factions within the Texas state. The shooting occurred at approximately 12:30PM in the Dealey Plaza area of downtown Dallas. A chief suspect soon emerges: Lee Harvey Oswald, a US sympathizer who had previously defected to the Union after receiving a dishonourable discharge from the Confederate Army. Oswald would later claim at his trial - and right up to his execution - he was being set-up as the perfect "patsy" for Johnson's murder, because of his outspoken beliefs on civil rights and affirmative action.

However, Oswald's argument would prove ironic with hindsight. Since being sworn in six years before, Johnson had pursued several progressive policies in relation to civil rights for African-Americans during his administration. It would be his Vice-President and successor, John Connolly, who would succeed in convincing the Confederate Congress at Richmond to pass a historic Civil Rights bill in 1964.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy, along with his wife, Jacqueline, complete a successful visit of the city of Dallas, continuing Kennedy's tour of the southern States in the run-up to his re-election campaign in 1964. Incident Along Motorcade Route by Gerry Shannon

Speaking later that day before the Dallas Trade Mart, Kennedy would draw attention to America's future role in both economic and world affairs:

"Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed.

But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom".

Meanwhile, in a bizarre sidebar to the Kennedy visit, Dallas police officials are alerted to an apparent suicide by a male employee at the Texas School Book Depository - which occured moments after Kennedy's motorcade left Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas for the Trade Mart. (When asked by a reporter later, Kennedy admitted he thought he heard " what sounded like a firecracker" when heading to the Trade Mart, before then expressing his condolences to the man's family).

The body was quickly identified of that of Lee Oswald, a former Marine, who recently defected to Russia and had returned to the States. Oswald had sought employment at the Depository, after being recommended there by a friend.

Speaking to Hugh Aynesworth of The Dallas Morning News, Depository manager Roy Truly, clearly shaken, said: "He [Oswald] seemed to be the only one not interested in the President's motorcade... I thought he seemed more distant then usual. That was Lee, he tended to keep to himself. But you sure as hell don't expect him to then go blow his head off".

Dallas police officials said Oswald apparently shot himself through the head with a 6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle, Oswald's ownership of which they were still trying to determine.

It is thought Oswald's suicide came about after a recent dispute with his estranged Russian wife, Marina. In what is seen by many as a result of the goodwill of the President's visit, donations to the widow and her two children pour in all over the city of Dallas; most notably from a local club owner (who wished to remain anonymous) who donates the weekend profits of his club, The Carousel.

In 1963, on this evening ex-marine Lee Harvey Oswald (pictured) is commended by the Secret Service for his bravery and quick-thinking during an attempt on the life of President John F. Kennedy along the route of his motorcade in Dallas, Texas.

Hero Oswald by Gerry ShannonWhen the president's motorcade pulled into Dealey Plaza, Oswald, watching from the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, noticed a gathering of suspicious-looking individuals behind the grassy knoll near the bridge overpass.

Oswald managed to race down the Depositry's elevator and ran out onto the street in front of the policemen and the motorcade, alterting them to the oncoming danger. Not long after, frantic shots rang out from the knoll, however, Kennedy and his wife were already pushed to the floor of the car by Secret Service members and unharmed.

While Oswald was initally arrested on suspicion of involvement in the assasination plot, he was soon let go while the knoll shooters were found in the moments after the gunshots rang out. Oswald would later personally recieve the Congressional Gold Medal by Kennedy himself.

However, to this day, conspiracy theories persist Oswald had some knowledge of the plot to murder Kennedy, due to his alleged communist ties and his one-time defection to Russia. Conspiracy author Jim Marrs would say in his book, Attempted Crossfire, "... it's entirely possible that Oswald, who friends say always wanted to be somebody, joined the conspirators with the full intention to use his knowledge of their plot to make it look like he was saving Kennedy. "

In 2000, at 3am in the morning an ambulance arrived at Dick Cheney's home in McLean, Virginia; the Republican Vice Presidential nominee (pictured) was suffering from acute chest pains and was rushed to George Washington University for emergency heart treatment.Cheney's Last Stonewall

The following afternoon, George W. Bush would issue a press release from his Crawford, Texas Ranch in which the Republican Presidential nominee announced that nothing was seriously wrong with his running mate's health - Cheney had not suffered his fourth heart attack.

As the chad and vote counting continued in Florida, it would shortly afterwards emerge that not only had Cheney suffered a heart attack, he had tragically died during the course of an angioplasty, a preventative medical procedure in which a small balloon-tipped wire is inserted into a clogged heart artery to open it.

The following morning, Bill Safire wrote in his New York Times column ~ "Throughout the campaign, Cheney has ducked detailed questions about his heart disease. His blood pressure and daily medications were not revealed. We now know that our toleration of his brush-offs was a mistake".

The time for brush-offs and stonewalling very much over, a scandal quickly ensued, in which a number of previously undisclosed secrets emerged about the Republican candidacy.

• Unambigious evidence of draft-dodging throughout the 1960s
• Multiple Driving Whilst Intoxication (DWI) Police Charges
• Sharp business practices particularly Halliburtons $34bn asbestos exposure and Texas Ranger's illegal tax breaks
• Dirty political tactics during the primary campaign against John McCain.

In 2012, just a week after he sensationally quit the long-running TV series "Little House on the Prairie", veteran actor Mitt Romney was re-employed as a gas pump jockey in La Jolla, California.

Paw Ingalls Quits 2"Mittens" had played "Paw" Ingalls for nearly three decades, becoming the central character that filled the gaping void left by series anchor Michael Langdon. However as America increasingly embraced diversity, the monochrome series has begun to appear dated. Hoping to fire a new sense of passion, in his own words, Mittens had left nothing on the field and yet was near-universally considered an anachronism by young people and minorities. And recently he had admitted to being "slightly frazzled" by the relentless schedule of appearances, welcoming the opportunity to let down his famously well-groomed hair.

It is considered unlikely that he will resume his entertainment career any time soon. His agent denied rumours that he had been on an all-night milk bender.

In 1916, on this day Kaiser Franz Josef Habsburg, Emperor of the Germans, (pictured) died at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.

Death of Kaiser Franz Josef, Emperor of the GermansHaving ruled for an incredible sixty-eight years, he was succeeded by his twenty-nine year old grand-nephew Karl. Tragically, he died five years later and was succeeded by Otto von Habsburg who lived to the ripe old age of ninety-eight.

The thousand year future of the Imperial House of Habsburg had taken a change of direction after the hard fought victory at Königgrätz which stymied the Prussian attempt to force the unification of Germany on their own terms. And instead of the Hohenzollerns, it would be the Habsburgs who won out, establishing the new Kaiserreich, a Germanic monarchist system, ruled from Vienna with a central european system of thinking. During the transition from Franz Josef to Karl to Otto, nationalist pressures were threatening to rip the Slavic part of the Empire apart. The resolution of this so-called "Southern Question" would completely dominate the early decades of Otto's long rule.

A sign of the coming was the assassination of Franz Josef's nominal heir Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo in August 1914. Although the Habsburg brought the Black Hand Gang to justice, by overriding Serbian sovereignty (they insisted on sending detectives across the border) they had inadvertently de-stabilised the entire region.

In 1386, on this day a Georgian army under the command of King Bagrat V defeated the forces of Timur of Samarkand at the gates of the capital city, Tbilisi.

The Triumph of Bagrat the GreatA fair and popular ruler, also known as a perfect soldier, he was dubbed as "Bagrat the Great" by his multiethnic subjects. The Trapezuntine chronicler Michael Panaretos, who knew the king personally, called him a "prominent and victorious general"

But the hard fought victory was only made possible by the arrival of a vital ally, the Khan of Golden Horde, Tokhtamysh (a descendant of Genghis Khan's eldest grandson, Orda Khan or his brother Tuqa-Timu).

In 1921, on this day the thirty-seventh President of the United States, John Vliet Lindsay (pictured) was born in West End Avenue to an upper middle class family of English and Dutch extraction that had resided in New York City ever since the 1660s.

John V. Lindsay
37^th US PresidentWith the outbreak of World War II, Lindsay completed his studies early and joined the United States Navy as a gunnery officer. He obtained the rank of lieutenant, earning five battle stars through action in the invasion of Sicily and a series of landings in the Pacific theater. Resuming at Yale he received his law degree in 1948, ahead of schedule.

Back in New York, Lindsay he met his future wife, Mary Anne Harrison, at the wedding of Nancy Bush (daughter of Connecticut's Senator Prescott Bush and sister of future President George H.W. Bush). After they married he was admitted to the bar, and rose to become a partner in his law firm four years later.

He started gravitating toward politics, serving as one of the founders of the Youth for Eisenhower club in 1951 and as president of the New York Young Republican club in 1952. In 1958, with the backing of Herbert Brownell, Bruce Barton, John Aspinwall Roosevelt, and Mrs Wendell Wilkie, Lindsay won the Republican primary and went on to be elected to Congress as the representative of the "Silk Stocking" district, Manhattan's Upper East Side.

The life of Lindsay and his fellow New Yorkers changed forever on August 17, 1960. New York City suffered the worst storm in its history as a hurricane that by today's standards would be graded Category 4 hit just after 12:30 PM; dubbed "the Jamaica Bay hurricane" because it made landfall near the Jamaica Bay section of Queens, the storm flooded large sections of Queens and Brooklyn and also devastated much of Manhattan and the Bronx. Many of New York's most famous landmarks were heavily damaged or destroyed by the hurricane, which also brought the city's mass transit systems to a screeching halt as flood waters blocked subway tunnels and overran most of the city's major bus routes.

Within months, Robert F. Wagner would resign as mayor of New York City after weeks of constantly growing criticism of his leadership of the response to the Jamaica Bay hurricane; City Council president Abe Stark was sworn in as new mayor as 12:01 that afternoon to finish out the remainder of Wagner's term. Stark, in turn, would be replaced by Congressman and surprise write-in winner of the 1960 mayoral elections John Lindsay.

Due to his vigourous leadership of the rebuilding of the City, he was re-elected in a landslide. But more significantly, he had gained national prominence through the new media of television. Before his second term was out, he was already being talked about as a candidate for the 1968 Presidential election. His opponent in the Republican Primaries would be Michigan Governor George W. Romney who was forced to suspend his campaign due to the tragic death of his son in a car crash in France. And his substitute, fellow Michiganer Robert P. Griffin was unable to retain enough delegates at the Convention. Buoyed by this victory, Lindsay defeated Hubert Humphrey in the Fall.

In 1910, on this day a "revolt of the lash" spurred a race war in Brazil. Brazil, though a large, advancing nation in the early twentieth century and a leader among Latin American countries as part of the ABC Powers (Argentina, Brazil, & Chile), still stood as a culture suffering from racial division.

Revolt of the Lash Spurs Race War in Brazil While many French colonies had ended slavery with the Revolution in 1789, England had abolished it by act of Parliament in 1833, and the United States fought its civil war in 1861 partially over the matter, Brazil did not begin gradually ending slavery until 1871 with the passage of the Rio Branco Law (or "The Law of Free Birth") providing freedom for children newborn to slaves, the Saraiva-Cotegipe Law in 1885 freeing slaves over 60 years old, and finally total abolition in 1888 with the Lei Aurea shortly before the emperor was overthrown. While Brazil avoided much of the US's infamous institutionalization of race superiority with Jim Crow, there was still a significant social division of race among the wealthy whites and the blacks, paros (mixed race), and caboclos (mixed Euro-Indians), fed by intellectual "science" of the time.

A new story by Jeff ProvineWhile minorities were kept at a lower caste in general culture, the most obvious racism was felt in the military. In particular, the Brazilian navy was notorious for white commanders with minority crews held at their whim. Living conditions were poor aboard ship, but the navy was making leaps beyond other navies in comparable nations. In the early days of the Republic, the government focused on the army to quell internal problems, leaving only a handful of naval soldiers and less than 2,000 marines. As tiny as it was, the navy proved instrumental in the Revoltas da Armada of 1891 when President Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca attempted to dissolve Congress and continued to battle against President Marshal Floriano Peixoto who held onto office despite legal need of elections in the next few years. After the turn of the century, calls began for building up the navy and establishing Brazil as a significant power at sea. Other nations such as Britain, Germany, and the United States rushed into the naval arms race, and Brazil was quick to catch up with many new ships and two dreadnoughts, the Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, both commissioned in 1910.

Economic downturn struck Brazil just after the completion of their dreadnoughts, causing the third proposed, Rio de Janeiro, to be shelved. The troubled times also turned into harder conditions aboard ship as well as on land with food and supplies cut back to save on expenses. General morale fell, which caused discipline to be sharpened, including the use of racial slurs and corporal punishment, specifically the lash. This aggravated two years of organization and protest against flogging, which involved "leather whips tipped with metal balls", and pushed the sailors into planned mutiny. The men aboard the Minas Gerais chose Joao Candido Felisberto ("The Black Admiral") as leader and watched furiously as a sailor was sentenced to 250 lashes, continuing even after he slipped into unconsciousness.

In the late hours of November 21, the men began their mutiny, killing officers and capturing British engineers as hostages. The revolt spread to the Sao Paulo as well as the Deodoro and the Bahia. Their demands began simply, but as Candido saw that the Army was moving to protect the capital Rio de Janeiro and outnumber the coastal defenders who were sympathetic, he decided that the only way to survive was to make wider demands. The issue that tied the bulk of the oppressed together was the problem of race. Most of the sailors (as well as army and manual laborers) were black, many of them former slaves or their sons, forced into place by lack of other options. Candido and his advisers (including several of the British) wrote up a new list of demands for rights despite race as well as taxes on the rich to support charities for the poor.

The "Letter to Brazil" (Letra a Brasil) was sent by written message, word of mouth, and even wireless, spreading through the country and spawning an upheaval in major cities and areas where minority populations outnumbered the whites. The army quickly came onto the side of the navy, which made the white elites unable to put down the revolt as they had many in the past. Britain began to step in, but when their hostages were cheerfully released home, Brazil was left to itself. Much of the government and the elites fled the country. The remainder invited Candido ashore, and a new government was built following his manifesto.

Public education became mandatory as a subpoint on the Letter, and the new Brazilian Democratic Republic survived its depression to thrive as it contributed to the rebuilding of Europe after its neutrality in World War I. The Great Depression struck harder, and Getulio Vargas swept elections with his nationalist rhetoric. He was invited by Adolph Hitler to join the new Axis, but Vargas decided to continue Brazilian elections and relations with the United States, leading to Brazil's participation in World War II. While economic issues arose after the war and rumors circulated about militaristic or even communist uprising in the 1960s, Brazil would ultimately continue to be a social model to the rest of the world.

In 1867, the House of Representatives ended a furious debate by narrowly voting to impeach Abraham Lincoln after the House Judiciary committee had produced a damning bill consisting of a vast collection of complaints against him.

Lincoln ImpeachedIn order to "bind the wounds" of the Civil War, the sixteenth President's vision for Reconstruction had been a quick and lenient re-uniting of the nation, centered on forgiving most Confederates and quickly bringing their states back to full participation in the Union.

By April of 1865, it had become clear that his plans were no more imaginative than passing control to the former Whigs who had been reluctant secessionists. And in fact the control of the entire Federal Government itself had very nearly passed to Andrew Johnson, an Independent South politician on Good Friday. However, the assassin John Wilkes Booth had misfired at the Ford Theatre, killing Mary Lincoln instead.

The emerging prospect of a confrontation with Congress had become a near certainty when Lincoln refused to sign the Wade-Davis Bill. In so doing, he had rejected a series of far more stringent conditions for the creation of State Governments which had been laid down by Congress.

The underlying issue was that Lincoln did not have a overarching plan, rather than an inclination to use his political genius to move matters forward along a roadmap of his own choosing. His undeclared intention of working with the States on an individual basis was plainly evident in his encouragement of the election of Michael Hahn as a pro-Union Governor to head a loyal government in Louisiana. And by 1867, the US Congress had decided that matters were completely out of control and the legislature must re-establish its authority on Reconstruction by terminating the recalcitrant Lincoln's scheming Presidency.

In 2003, on his retirement as Commander of the United States Central Command, Four Star General Tommy Franks gave an interview to Time Magazine in which he accurately predicted that in the event of another terrorist attack, American Constitutional liberties would be discarded by popular demand in favor of a military state.Petraeus' Knot to Untie, Part 10 - The End of the Grand Experiment
Discussing the dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Franks said that "worst thing that could happen" was if terrorists acquired and then used a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicted heavy casualties.
Franks foresaw that under such circumstances "... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy".
Less than five years later, General David Howell Petraeus and Marine Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis would return from Iraq to an America beset by terrorism, ravaged by climate change, and ruled by a Christian military dictatorship.
The story continues.

In 1942, on this day the late Senator Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Birth of Senator Joe BidenHe lived there for ten years before moving to Delaware. He became an attorney in 1969, and was elected to a county council in 1970. Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history.

At the end of Ronald Reagan's second term, he entered the Presidential race under the slogan "A President to make us Proud Again". This was a wide open field because Jimmy Carter's VP Walter Mondale had run (and lost) in 1984 as had Jesse Jackson.

When the campaign began, Biden was considered a potentially strong candidate because of his moderate image, his speaking ability on the stump, his appeal to Baby Boomers, his high profile position as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the upcoming Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, and his fundraising appeal. He raised $1.7 million in the first quarter of 1987, more than any other candidate. Biden received considerable attention in the summer of 1986 when he excoriated Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a Senate hearing because of the Reagan administration's support of South Africa, which continued to practice the apartheid system.

But unfortunately his health took an unexpected down turn, and although he belatedly pulled out of the race, he died aged forty-six long before election day as a result of an aneurysm.

In 1912, on this day Otto von Habsburg (pictured) was born at Villa Wartholz in Reichenau an der Rax.

Birth of Kaiser Otto, Emperor of the GermansOnly four years later he became Crown Prince, and then at the age of just nine, succeeded his father Karl as Emperor of the Germans.

During its thousand year history, the Imperial House of Habsburg had occupied many of the thrones of Europe. But events had taken the oddest of turns in 1866. In the narrowest of victories at the Battle of Königgrätz, the Prussian attempt to force the unification of Germany on their terms ended in failure. And instead of the Hohenzollerns, it would be the Habsburgs who won out, establishing the new Kaiserreich, a Germanic monarchist system, ruled from Vienna with a central european system of thinking.

But by the time Otto was proclaimed Kaiser, nationalist pressures were threatening to rip the Slavic part of the Empire apart. The resolution of this so-called "Southern Question" would completely dominate the early decades of his long rule.

In 284 AD, on this day forty-year old Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus (Diocletian) was chosen as Roman Emperor after the army unanimously saluted him as their new Augustus, and he accepted the purple imperial vestments.

Hedges of the Night
Article written by Ed, Scott Palter & Jeff ProvineFrom freedman had he risen steadily through the ranks of the military, serving in Gaul before the appointment as Dux Moesiae, cavalry commander of forces on the lower Danube. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was proclaimed Emperor. The title was also claimed by Carus' other surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus. With his accession to power, Diocletian ended the Crisis of the Third Century.

Diocletian appointed fellow officer Maximian Augustus his senior co-emperor in 285. He delegated further on 1 March 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, junior co-emperors. Under this "Tetrarchy", or "rule of four", each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the Empire. Diocletian secured the Empire's borders and purged it of all threats to his power. He defeated the Sarmatians and Carpi during several campaigns between 285 and 299, the Alamanni in 288, and usurpers in Egypt between 297 and 298. Galerius, aided by Diocletian, campaigned successfully against Sassanid Persia, the Empire's traditional enemy. In 299 he sacked their capital, Ctesiphon. he led the subsequent negotiations and achieved a lasting and favorable peace.

His life experience provided Diocletian with a broad understanding of the operation of the power structures in the Roman Empire. And from his lowly birth status grew the germ of a compelling vision for meritocracy that would secure the future. Clearly to survive the centuries, the Empire needed to devolve into a symbiotic grouping of self-sustaining admnistrative provinces which could draw from local resources (the Rhine and Danube had the good recruiting grounds, whereas the East and to a lesser extent Italy/Africa had the money). But such a structure was always vulnerable to a powerful general whose ambition was to rule the whole Empire.

The answer to this conundrum was the progression of offices under which a Count of Britain picked in York by two Caesars and two Augusti could rise to higher order roles in Trier, Antioch, the Danube and finally Rome. As a further safeguard against dictatorship, Diocletian introduced a formal separation of powers, with a strong Senate and controls to keep the Praetorian Guard in check. It was these "hedges of the night" that would sustain the rule of four in the long centuries to come, preventing the civilized world from plunging into a dark age.

In 1938, on this day the U.S. federal government bought a substantial tract of land in the Cape Canaveral region of Florida with the aim of building a rocket launch/construction/training facility in that area to be jointly operated by the War and Navy.Departments.

Part Nine of Parley Construction on the Cape Canaveral rocket base would be finished in the summer of 1939, just in time for the start of the Second World War. The base would play a critical role in crushing the militarist rebellion on Mars; in the 1960s Canaveral would gradually transition into a fully civilian spaceport, and by 1980 would serve as the principal departure point for flights between Earth and US and allied outposts on the Moon.

In 1923, on this day in Munich, Anton Drexler the President of the German Workers' Party (DAP) was formally charged with the murder of Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler (pictured).

The Plot Against Germany 6 Hitler punks at the FeldharenhalleFirst reports had indicated that some embittered Nazis had executed the veteran for cowardice after he had punked at the Feldharenhalle, the attempted coup of November 9th known as the "Beer Hall Putsch". But investigations soon revealed that he was an army infiltrator, appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance commando) of the Reichswehr, to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the DAP. The exposure was of course a tremendous shock to Drexler whose leadership had been deeply marginalized by Hitler. He suspected that Hitler had been trying to destroy the party from within. Whereas the police suspected that Drexler had used Hitler's exposure simply as a means of restoring his position in the party.

While Drexler set about the task of rebuilding the DAP in the wake of the Feldharenhalle, Hitler became a little known foot note in the early history of the party. A failed fine arts painter, a war hero and noted denizen of the Munich demimonde it was also rumoured that he briefly served with the forces of the Bavarian Socialist Republic. Unfortunately, he would not live to see Germany turn red at the ballot box, instead Drexler would be given the fruitless task of trying to stop the inexorable rise of Ernst Thalmänn to the Chancellorship of Germany. An article from the asynchronous Chancellor Ernst Thalmänn thread.

In 1759, on this day the Royal Navy was ravaged at the Battle of Quiberon Bay. The Anglo-French portion of the Six Years' War had dragged on through mixed results. Early on, the French had the upper hand with a string of victories in North America, but the leadership of Secretary of State William Pitt, Senior, resulted in a masterful use of British resources to turn the tide of the war.

Battle of Quiberon Bay Ravages Royal Navy Then came the Annus Pestis (Cursed Year) of 1759. The French settlers and their Indian allies ignited a guerilla war in the Ohio Country that frustrated British hopes of taking Quebec. In India, Madras fell to French forces, though the battle would prove Pyrrhic for the victors. On the European Continent, French troops formed a siege of Minden, taking large swaths of German land west of the Weser River. At sea, the British gained great hope after the attack on Le Havre with a two-day bombardment that destroyed many of the barges the French were assembling for an amphibious invasion of Britain and again a small victory came at the Battle of Lagos, where British ships destroyed two ships-of-the-line from the French fleet and scattered the rest. However, the Battle of Quiberon Bay would give France another chance to challenge Britain for control of the high seas.

A new story by Jeff ProvineThe battle began after a storm had driven most of the British blockade keeping the remaining troop transports at bay in France. French Marshal de Conflans hurried to merge his fleet with other squadrons collected from the West Indies and remainders from battles in the Mediterranean. He was spotted by British squadron commander Robert Buff and decided to give pursuit, but Buff split his smaller fleet into two groups heading north and south. In what was is seen as the most fortuitous move of the war, Conflans decided to keep his fleet together while in pursuit of the southerly British ships, resulting in organization that would be key to victory in the hard-won battle. The bulk of the English fleet appeared under Edward Hawke from the west, and the two converged in a titanic battle. A shift in the wind nearly disorganized Conflans, but the French managed to keep their composure and defeat the English inside the bay. Hawke died in the battle and only a handful of ships-of-the-line managed to escape, enabling the French to capture some ten more and wreck others.

It would be the final straw of the Annus Pestis. The French hurried to rebuild their fleet and launch their invasion of Britain as soon as weather permitted. Meanwhile, England became frantic.

Though William Pitt campaigned for a strong militia defense, drawing in the French force and then cutting off their supplies with a renewed navy to capture the army while it starved, the rest of Parliament would be swayed by the fearful public opinion. That Christmas, the English sued for peace, and the Treaty of Paris in 1760 took England out of the war. France made great colonial demands, retaking the lost Guadeloupe in the West Indies, expanding French territory in North America, and carving out rights to a French South India from the Carnatic and Mysore regions to the Indian Ocean France continued on in Europe, pressing troops into Hanover and forcing Prussia into a stalemate with Russia and Sweden. In the east, the war would end in 1761 with Prussia's growth being checked amid the other Baltic Powers.

The next twenty-five years would be a renewed Golden Age for France, raking in great wealth from its new colonies. Britain, meanwhile, came upon problematic times as it struggled to recover, establishing a taxation system that sent its American colonies into rebellion, which was much aided by the French. The resulting United States of America would soon have the first of many border wars with the French in Ohio, Louisiana, and along the St. Lawrence River, gradually pushing the French and their Indian allies west and northward.

The American experiment in self-rule spawned a wave of Enlightenment revolutions through Europe, and France would be among the first to lose its autocracy with the revival of the Estates-General and the establishment of the National Assembly to placate and aid those suffering from poor harvests. The renewed France would again injure Britain by aiding the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which would make famous Colonel Arthur Wesley as a great hero of Ireland as he managed to forge a self-rule for Ireland while maintaining some connection with England.

With a weakened Britain, other European powers took up their chances to increase their colonial strengths with Portugal in southern Africa, the Dutch in the South Pacific with New Holland, and the French in South Asia, West Africa, the Great Lakes, and in numerous islands wherever their navy could reach.

In 1759, on this day the home fleet of British admiral Sir Edward Hawke was destroyed off the French coast at Quiberon Bay (portrayed in "The Day After" by the artist Richard Wright). It was a strategic masterstroke for the French Government whose forces were facing impending expulsion from North America, West Africa and India. Because Foreign minister Duc de Choiseul's options had narrowed to the one significant reprisal on offer - an attack on Britain itself.

The Day AfterIronically, the tactical failures at St Nazaire were also the result of over-boldness. Because under full sail, Hawke had chased the French fleet through the rocks and shoals that stretch south from the end of the Quiberon peninsula into the confined waters of the Bay of Quiberon itself with night approaching in an onshore gale, despite having no charts, pilots or any foreknowledge of the waters.

"Where there was passage for the enemy, there was passage for me. We are so close, their pilots will be mine. If they go to pieces on the shore, they shall become our beacons" ~ Admiral HawkeAdmiral Conflans received fresh orders to transport a diversionary force of twenty thousand troops to Glasgow, luring English regiments north. Meanwhile, a further twenty thousand troops set sail for Maldon in Essex, whilst a third force descended upon Ireland. Had Duc de Choiseul received better military intelligence, he would have surely realised that a single assault upon Maldon would have sufficed.

"[Quiberon Bay] is the graveyard of our navy, the ruin of all our hopes" ~ King George II of EnglandPanic soon set in when news of the naval disaster arrived at the War Department in London. Due to the imperial overstretch placed on the one hundred twenty-five regiments of the British Army, only fourteen thousand regulars were immediately available for the defence of the realm. And the breathtaking news that Charles Stuart was aboard the French Flagship Soleil Royal prevented the War Office from raising militias for fear that a Jacobite Fifth Column would form.