In 1745, on this day American President John Jay was born to a wealthy Hugenot-descended family of merchants and government officials in New York City.

Birth of President John JayHe graduated at King's College (now Columbia University) in 1764, he was admitted to the bar in 1768, and formed a partnership with Robert R. Livingston. In 1774 he was a delegate in the first Continental Congress, and the same year he married a daughter of William Livingston, of New Jersey. In that Congress, though the youngest member but one, he took a conspicuous part, being the author of the Address to the People of Great Britain. His facile pen was often employed in framing documents in the Congress of 1775.

However the following June, destiny took the oddest of turns after he received the Rutledge Letter. Because Rutledge urged Jay to find a way to turn his Continental Congress colleagues from independence, hoping that there was still a way to "effectively oppose" the headlong rush toward nationhood that the colonials were in.

When Jay took control of the Continental Congress and began negotiating for a rapprochement with the Crown, he sent Rutledge to Great Britain to argue on behalf of increased autonomy for the colonies if they would yield to continued British rule. Rutledge found many in Britain's Parliament eager to accede to American demands in order to free up forces for the disastrous war in Canada, and his own affinity for the British won him enough allies to push his measures through and end the war between the American colonies and Great Britain.

In 1948, on this day a fourteen-man patrol from the 7th Platoon, G Company, 2nd Scots Guard led by led by two lance-sergeants, Charles Douglas and Thomas Hughes surrounded a rubber plantation, shot and killed twenty-eight unarmed Malayan civilians before setting fire to the village of Batang Kali.

Justice for Batang Kali Massacre Britain's My LaiThe official report produced by Commanding officer George Ramsay was immediately published in the Singapore-based Straits Times "Police, Bandits kill 28 [sic] bandits in day ... Biggest Success for Forces since [Malayan] Emergency Started". But the British owner of the Sungei Remok Estate, Thomas Menzies immediately contradicted the report, publicly stated that his labourers had a long record of good conduct. By the 24th December the Straits Times was calling for a public enquiry and British Communist MP Philip Piratin became directly involved in the dispute. Discovering that there was a living witness, he brought villager Romen Bose Tham to London. Together, they started the biggest firestorm in the history of the British Empire.

In 2012, on this day An Unexpected Journey, the first part of Peter Jackson's movie adaptation of the Inklings' 1937 collaborative novel The Witch, the Hobbit and the Wardrobe premiered in cinemas across North America.

The Witch, the Hobbit and the Wardrobe
An Unexpected JourneySet in the metaphorical pre-war land of Narnia, the four Aryan-looking Pevensie Children enter a cruel world that is forever winter but Christmas never comes. The cause of this misery becomes immediately evident when Peter Pevensie casually encounters Jadis the Witch Queen and her malign dwarf henchman (pictured). Returning with his siblings Edmund, Lucy and Susan, they sets upon a quest to bring Christmas.

Greeted by Tumnus the Faun minutes after returning, he discovers that years have passed in Narnia and the endless winter world is thawing because the Queen has lost a ring of power that has greatly diminished her control. They set out on an An Unexpected Journey to find the Hobbit into whose possession the Ring has fallen, setting up a final confrontation that will determine the mastery of Narnia forever.

In 1939, on this day the Battle of Tolvajarvi became a Finnish Rout. Throughout its history, Finland had struggled to free itself from the imperialistic influence of her neighbors. In the Medieval period, Sweden settlers dominated the natives and achieved rule with the Finnish people being commoners.

Battle of Tolvajarvi Becomes Finnish Rout During the wars of the eighteenth century known as the Greater Wrath and Lesser Wrath, Russia, revolutionized after the time of Peter the Great, occupied Finland. Ultimately, the Finnish War of 1808-9 would wrest control from Sweden and turn Finland into an autonomous grand duchy within the rule of the Russian Empire.

Finland would stay under Russian influence for another century until the Russian Civil War would give way to Finland's independence on December 6, 1917. Relations between the Finnish Republic and the eventual Soviet Union remained strained. While non-aggression treaties were signed in the 1930s, Soviet invasion would spark the Winter War on November 30, 1939, as a side-event to the growing Second World War.

A new story by Jeff ProvineThe nations were scarcely matched: Finland's army was 30 percent that of Russia, its air force 3 percent, and its armored vehicles 1 percent. While the numbers were overwhelming, the Red Army was still recovering from Stalin's Great Purge of more than 30,000 officers imprisoned or executed in 1937. Meanwhile, the Finns held high morale and unbreakable commitment to resistance. While the Russians had air superiority and powerful advances with tanks, the Finnish troops had minor victories, holding the Russians moving northward from Leningrad across the isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. While the Mannerheim Line held there, more Russian troops crossed from north of the lakes. The Finns planned to meet them at Tolvajarvi.

The Finnish battle plan was to use the frozen lakes as points to cross and attack the oncoming Soviets in a pincer movement. The Finns engaged with Soviets, who outnumbered them five-to-one. Rather than attempt to press ahead along the road, the Soviets withdrew. Thinking that he had caught the Russians unawares, Finnish Colonel Talvela took up pursuit. Despite taking losses during the retreat, the Russians came under artillery protection and counterattacked, wiping out the Finnish defenders.

With the harsh victory at Tolvajarvi, the Russians picked up momentum that would bring them around the lake and encircle the Finnish defenders along the Mannerheim Line. Helsinki would fall March 13, 1940, and Finland would be declared part of the Soviet Union. While the quick conquest had been a military victory, the Finnish people had not yet given up the fight. Secretly supplied by Hitler's Germany, the Finn resistance would be an enormous strain on Stalin's manpower and resources. By the time the German invasion of Russia began with Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Soviets would be ill prepared to fight since so many were already working to maintain occupation.

The Eastern European Theater would be a bloodbath with Stalin desperately fighting to keep Hitler from taking Moscow, Stalingrad, and, especially, Leningrad, whose siege began September 8, 1941. In 1943, Stalin would proclaim an end to rule over Finland and recall troops to bolster his defenses. Rising up as a fascist power, the Finns would counterattack, leading to the fall of Leningrad. In June 1944, Moscow fell, but Stalin continued fight on, eventually reversing the tide of war back to near the 1941 border.

The Western Front, however, eventually pushed into Germany, and Hitler's regime fell with the taking of Berlin by General George S. Patton on May 2, 1945. Armistice fell across Central Europe, and Finland's fascist government collapsed under Soviet pressure. While the Russians did not occupy much of Eastern Europe, they did take hold of their old Russian imperial possessions, including Finland. It would not be until after the end of the Cold War that Finland, then a bleak, backwater economy, would regain its independence.

In 1899, on this day The Morning Post's war correspondent Winston Churchill (pictured left and below, right) sneaked out of the Pretoria High School for Girls where Boer Free Staters had locked up the surviving members of the Chieveley raid. The twenty-five year old aristocrat vaulted a wall behind the latrines and waited in an outer garden before making good his escape.

Death of a Little Bit of a NewspapermanFearing that a successful jail-break would be showcased in the British media as dashing adventurism, a price of twenty-five pounds was put on his head. Yet a more balanced view was taken by the Commandant of the Boer Forces, General Joubert. He actually offered less cash reward (27 shillings) for Churchill's recapture than the British officers were paying for a bottle of Scotch. "He is just 'n klein koerant-skrywertjie (a little bit of a newspaperman)" he said dismissing Churchill.

"Englishman 25 years old about 5 foot 8 inches tall medium build walks with a slight stoop. Pale features. Reddish-brown hair almost invisible small moustache. Speaks through his nose and cannot pronounce the letter S. Had last a brown suit on and cannot speak one word of Dutch. " - Boer Police ReportMeanwhile Churchill had stowed away on a coal train heading east in the direction of Mozambique. Desperate with hunger by the time the train stopped at Clewer, he knocked on a carriage door in search of food. The door was opened by John Howard, the manager of the Transvaal and Delagoa Bay Colliery. Howard agree to hide Churchill in the underground stables of the mine, and then later behind some packing cases in the office.

With Boer forces searching high and low, Howard hid Churchill under coal sacks on a train and attempted to smuggle him across the border into neutral territory. Despite Howard's willingness to bribe guards at numerous points of discovery, their luck finally ran out at Komati Poort, the station at the boundary between the Transvaal and Portuguese East Africa. A close search of the train revealed Churchill, who had been surviving entirely on chocolate.

Two days after his second arrest, the British consul at Delagoa Bay sent a telegram to the British Foreign Office containing the coded phrase "Goods lost in transit". The next day the front page of the Morning Post carried a feature article on the cowardly Churchill, who, by making a solitary escape, had prevented his combatant colleagues from making a general attempt.Most shocking of all, perhaps, amongst the surviving members of the Chieveley raid was an aristocratic North West frontier acquaintenance, Captain Haldane who later published a reputation destroying account of Churchill's misdeeds

In 2004, Karol Wojtyla aka Pope John Paul II had a locked box brought to a conference room, and he opened it to Josef Ratzinger.

Superfluous Scripture"Unless you are considerably better than I am in Greek contaminated with Aramaic slang," said the Pope, "I recommend that you start with the typescripts in the pouch. They are the Italian, French, German, and Spanish translations of the original documents, which have been stored in the Vatican for two millennia".

Ratzinger touched the papers with hesitation. "You mean, those parchments are the papers used by the Apostles as sources for the Gospels? The fabled Q Documents".

Unconsciously, the ill pontiff let a line of drool run down his left chin. Without asking, Ratzinger took a hankie and cleaned the mishap. "The Vatican Libraries are truly amazing. It is a shame that so much of it is to be kept confidential".

"These papers, what do they add to the story of our Lord?"

"You learn his favorite meal was corn and barley soup; at every sermon, Jesus insisted that his audience adopt stray animals like dogs and cats and tend to them kindly, and that Jesus read Greek fluently and patronized libraries where he read Plato and Aristotle and Caesar. There are even a couple of book reviews written by the Lord Jesus himself".

"Astonishing," exclaimed Ratzinger.

His hand involuntary shaking and jerking, John Paul II pointed to a particular page.

"And here Jesus organizes his disciples for his coming death. And Jesus says: decisions shall be made by Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter after conference and due deliberation, and when Simon and Mary disagree, there shall be no action performed".

""Oh. my God," exclaimed Ratzinger.

"The Q Document makes plain that women are to be priests and in fact, Jesus has made multiple women priests and he expressly approves them as his agents, stating that women are equal to men and that their periods are unimportant".

Pope John Paul II slumped in his chair. "There is much more," said the Pope. "Gregory XVI wrote a private dissertation on some statements Jesus made about all men having an obligation to supply children for the next generation, and Gregory's essay is passed down with the Q Documents to every Pope thereafter".

Ratzinger smiled ruefully. "So Jesus says, have children, and some Pope added a postscript in favor of celibacy".

Ratzinger said: "It will go hard with the church if this ever gets out".

"I agree," said John Paul II. "The night that John Paul I died in his bed was when he was given the Q Documents to read. "

"Josef," said John Paul II sombrely, "I expect that you will be the next Pope. If you admit what the Q Documents say, you will admit that Jesus never intended celibacy or the limitation of the priesthood to males.

Next to those admissions, who cares about triflles like Mary remarrying twice after Joseph died?"

"I understand," said Ratzinger. And he has not said a word about it since then,

In 1861, the Royal Navy decided that raids on either New York or Boston would inflict no useful damage on the United States, which had been busy fortifying those ports for the preceding six months.

The Scrooge Contribution Part IIIIn a Cabinet decision of that month, Palmerston authorized the _Warrior_ ironclad to join Admiral Milne's command in the Atlantic. There were rumors that the US Navy was building an ironclad of a remarkable new design in New York City, and the _Warrior_ was to counter that ship.

At the turn of 1861 and 1862, the Union percieved that it was at a disadvantage in the courts of Paris. Following the Scrooge Contribution and Confederate willingness to accept that term, French Emperor Louis Napoleon contemplated assistance to Britain's new protege, the Confederacy. Napoleon's immediate concern was getting money out of Mexico. where French troops still occupied the main customs house of Vera Cruz, Mexico. Rather than making a decision on what to do in Mexico, the Emperor failed to make a plan and the number of French soldiers and sailors at Vera Cruz grew to a force of 20,000 men.

In 2009, the movie Invictus (also known as The Human Factor) was released on this day in cinemas across North America. The script was based on the John Carlin book "Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation".
Watch the Youtube Clip

Triumph for the Rainbow NationThe plot takes a look at Nelson Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) from the fall of apartheid. The story is about Mandela's release from prison, his election as President of South Africa and his attempts to use the 1995 Rugby World Cup as a vehicle to bring his people together, after the fall of apartheid.

Led by their inspirational captain Francois Pienaar (played by Matt Damon), the South African team wins the tournament, upsetting the favourites New Zealand 15-12 in the final. During the remarkable post-match presentation ceremony Nelson Mandela, wearing a Springbok jersey bearing Pienaar's number, presented him with the Webb Ellis trophy. During his acceptance speech, Pienaar made it clear that the team had won the trophy not just for the sixty thousand fans at Ellis Park, but also for all forty-three million South Africans.

Pienaar is married to Nerine Winter and has two sons, one of whom has Nelson Mandela as a godfather.

In 1992, on this day Buckingham Palace announced the appointment of the next President-General of the British North American Union.Join or die

As expected following the retirement of Sir Geoffrey Howe, Mr Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, CH, PC (pictured) would take up the appointment at Her Majesty's pleasure. A prominent Tory politician and highly experienced diplomat, Mr Patten was considered a "safe pair of hands" - in his current role as Governor of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, the Baron had introduced limited democratic reforms with the Legislative Council and also negotiated with the Chinese Government on behalf of Great Britain.

A spokesman for the Palace confirmed that the Crown's most senior minister in North America would be presented to members of the Grand Council before the Queen retired to Balmoral Castle for the Christmas break. By January 20th the Crown's appointee would assume his full responsibilities for Indian relations, military preparedness, and execution of laws regulating various trade and financial activities. Historically, those responsibilities had been defined by the Articles of Confederation ratified at the Albany Congress - in 1754, representatives from the colonies of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island met at Albany, New York from June 19 to July 11 to discuss better relations with the Indian tribes and common defensive measures against the French.

In a loyalist appeal to Join or Die, the resulting Plan of Union was urged by a colonist, Benjamin Franklin who subsequently justified the plea in 1789 by explaining that "On Reflection it now seems probable, that if the foregoing Plan or some thing like it, had not been adopted and carried into Execution, a subsequent Separation of the Colonies from the Mother Country might have happened, with Mischiefs suffered on both sides, perhaps during another Century. For the Colonies, so united, were sufficient to their own Defence, and being trusted with it, as by the Plan, so that the different Parts of the Empire might remain in Peace and Union".

In 2012, on this day Jesse Law, Melinda Wadsley and Ken Eastman were among a dozen "fickle" Republican voters removed from the Electoral College by their respective States.

Nobody WinsThese "rogue electors" were replaced by new representatives who were committed to vote for Mitt Romney, the person they were chosen to support. Because a month before, the GOP Candidate had seized the background states of Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado. But because his opponent won Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and New Mexico, the Electoral College was deadlocked in a 269-269 tie.

This dead heat scenario had only been given a 0.7% probability but the next steps were nevertheless certain. On December 17th, the Electoral College would choose the next President of the United States. However there was a snag because only twenty-six states had enacted laws requiring their electors to vote for the person they were chosen to support. That meant there were in theory 256 unbound electors. And a week before the vote, on December 11th, the States had the right to replace electors as they saw fit.

The Republicans were understandably keen to make sure that defeat was not snatched from the jaws of victory. Because as early as October, Associated Press had found at least five potential rogue electors whose voting intentions were ambiguous.

In 969, on this day a plot to assassinate Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas was foiled by the vigilance of a palace guard (pictured).

Nikephoros II Phokas SurvivesThe plotters were his second wife Theophano and her lover (Nikephoros II's nephew) General John Tzimiskes who went into the palace dressed as women. But Nikephoros was warned that assassins were in the palace, and demanded the palace be searched [1].

Fortunately for the Byzantine Empire, Nikephoros Phocas, the White Death of the Saracens, hero of Syria and Crete had survived. Because his brilliant military exploits had contributed to the resurgence of the Empire in the tenth century.

In 1960, on this day President John F. Kennedy's administration was almost ended before it could begin as a mentally disturbed ex-postal worker named Richard Pavlick tried to kill the President-elect with a suicide bomb attack on Kennedy's Palm Beach vacation house.

A Shock To The System Part 1 by Chris OakleyAn alert Secret Service agent saved the President-elect's life by shooting out the front tires of Pavlick's car just as Pavlick was starting his attack; the former postman lost control of his vehicle and inadvertantly set off his bomb prematurely, vaporizing himself in the explosion. Kennedy survived the blast shaken but unhurt; the Secret Service agent was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital and released that evening.

Realizing America could have been thrust into political crisis if Pavlick's assassination plot had succeeded, Kennedy met with Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson the next day to begin brainstorming ideas on how to avert such a grim scenario in the future. The result of their discussions was the 1961 Presidential Security and Emergency Succession Act, which would be enacted and signed into law during Kennedy's first 100 days in office. In addition to further clarifying existing procedures for choosing a successor to the President in the event of an untimely death, the act created new safeguards to fill unexpected vacancies if either the President-elect or Vice President-elect died before their election could be certified by the Electoral College; last but not least, the act increased Secret Service protection for Presidents and presidential candidates.

In 1725, on this day George Mason IV (a "Founding Father" of the Republic of Virginia) was born at the family plantation in Fairfax County.

American Hero
Ed & Scott PalterAt the Williamsburg Convention he drafted the Colonies' very first declaration of rights and state constitution. First Pennsylvania, then Maryland, then Delaware, then North Carolina and others took most or all of the Declaration of Rights and either made them amendments to their own constitutions or incorporated them directly into their constitutions. Thomas Jefferson paraphrased his ideas into the Declaration of Independence, and although Mason did not receive full credit for his contribution, the entire Continental Congress knew of the conceptual source of Jefferson's ideas.

"a man of the first order of wisdom" ~ Jefferson on MasonAs a result of his high profile he was was appointed to represent Virginia as a delegate to a Federal Convention, to meet in Philadelphia for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.

He refused to sign the Constitution, however, and returned to his native state as an outspoken opponent in the ratification contest. Ironically, one objection to the proposed Constitution was that it lacked a "declaration of rights".

In 1936, after a scandalous summer, Edward VIII would stand in Westminster Abbey in December to receive the Crown and swear to uphold the laws of England, Scotland, and the Empire as well as serve as Defender of the Faith.

Edward VIII of England CrownedHe had reigned since the death of his father, George V, that January, and a suitable amount of time of mourning had passed to engage in the celebration of a new monarch. It would be a change of obedience to tradition from Edward's notorious shirking, such as his insistence on facing left on coins to show the part of his hair instead of following the usual alternating of the direction faced with every new monarch.

In the minds of many, there was concern that Edward, Prince of Wales, would be suitable for king at all. He had lived a good royal childhood, but Alan Lascelles, his private secretary during the '20s and '30s, wrote "for some hereditary or physiological reason his normal mental development stopped dead when he reached adolescence". He carried on many affairs, some with married women, and caused great concern from his father and the prime minister. In 1930, George V gave Edward a house at Fort Belvedere, where he would meet the woman that would forever change his life, Mrs. Wallis Simpson. The American had divorced her first husband, Earl Spencer, in 1927, and was currently married to Ernest Simpson. Despite the marriage, Edward fell in love with her, and she with him, which caused scandal to arise so much that the King and Prime Minister had them followed by secret police.

When the king died on January 20, 1936, Edward ascended the throne and immediately continued scandal. He observed the proclamation of his ascension alongside the still-married Mrs. Simpson, criticized the Government by saying "something must be done" upon visiting the struggling miners of South Wales, and suggested to some that he meant to marry the divorce Mrs. Simpson, which would be morally unacceptable as the leader of the Church of England.

Everything in Edward's life changed again on July 16, 1936, as he was horseback riding near Buckingham Palace. On Constitution Hill, Jerome Brannigan, an Irishman, produced an envelope for the King. Inside were letters, photographs, and various papers showing that Mrs. Simpson had been seeing, and doing more, with other men. The King became furious, and police escorted Brannigan away. While some modern historians suspect the documents were fabricated by MI5, they were treated as genuine at the time. Edward immediately broke relations with Mrs. Simpson through a letter and refused to receive her despite the many times she asked. In an action that had shown shocking discipline for the man who had left Oxford without a degree, the King searched through little-used law until he found grounds to banish Mrs. Simpson from Britain and the whole of the Empire. She would move to France and later be married to writer and painter Henry Miller for her third marriage.

Following his split from Mrs. Simpson, Edward became what those close to the royal family described as "a hard man". He threw himself into the work of the king and made good on his note that "something must be done", pushing for new socialist systems being integrated into Britain. His policies on the colonies were initially indifferent, then forcefully paternal, such as famously saying that there were "not many people in Australia" and he didn't care for their opinion.

Most famously in his reign was his relationship with German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler. Edward had seemed an admirer of Hitler's, and many of Edward's programs at overcoming the Depression in Britain mirrored those of the Third Reich. In 1938, however, upon Hitler's desire for expansion into Czechoslovakia, the King forbade Prime Minister Chamberlain to give expansionist Germany a single inch. The French Government sought peace at the expense of imperialism, but Edward refused, even if it meant war. He had observed the trenches in WWI and noted that he did not want war, but he would be willing to risk military action in order to protect the world from predators. He wrote then-MP Winston Churchill, "I was promised peace once before, and I was betrayed. Never again will I or my country ascribe to vague promises from those who shall not keep them".

War did erupt in 1939 with Hitler's military occupation of the Sudetenland , and Edward had made certain that the British Armed Forces were ready with years of preparation and military buildup. Using allied Poland and Belgium as launching grounds, the expeditionary forces caught Hitler in a pincer move along with French forces from the Saarland. The Fuhrer was found dead in his bunker after the taking of Berlin in 1941, apparently from suicide.

After the war, Britain regained its position as leader among world affairs. Edward would spend the rest of his reign putting out the fires of Communism and independence in various parts of the empire. After years of strenuous work, he died in 1962 at age 67. Having never married, he would be succeeded by his niece, Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2009, on this day the controversial movie Invictus (Latin: Invincible) premiered in theatres across North America. Expecting a "larger than life" tribute, cinema goers were shocked to discover that director Clint Eastwood had abandoned form by portraying an alternate timeline in which Nelson Mandela's personal and political fortunes are dashed in a decade-long South African tragedy.
Click to watch the Movie Trailer on Youtube

Invictus Premiers across North AmericaTrouble begins early in the movie with the breakdown of his second marriage to wife Winnie. And in a scene intended to symbolize the frustation of white disempowerment, the national cricket captain Hansie Cronje spears an umpire's dressing room door with a wicket stump. As the country heads towards Civil War, Mandela seeks out a national symbol that will heal the wounds of apartheid by acting as a platform upon which he can build a new "Rainbow Nation".

Mandela appeals to iconic cricket captain Hansie Cronje to win the world cup for all forty-three million South Africans. But unbeknown to the President, the national cricket team is gripped by a match-fixing scandal, organised by none other than Cronje himself.

Alongside Cronje is the trusted figure of Bob Woolmer. A famous English batsman from the nineteen seventies, he was appointed coach of South Africa in 1994. Initially his team performed poorly, losing all six matches on his first outing in Pakistan. However, in the next five years, South Africa won most of their Test (10 out of 15 series) and One Day International matches (73%). Having the highest ODI success rate among international teams in that period, Woolmer assures Mandela that a South African victory is more than possible.

Shortly after Mandela travels to England for the tournament, the United Cricket Board of South Africa deny that any of their players were involved in match-fixing. Cronje then falsely claims that "the allegations are completely without substance". But just two days before the inaugural match, Cronje is sacked as captain after confessing to the Head of the UCBSA Ali Bacher that he has not been "entirely honest". He admits accepting between $10,000 and $15,000 from a London-based bookmaker for "forecasting" results, not match fixing, during the recent one day series. Three other players: Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom are also directly implicated.

The final scene of the movie is heavy with symbolism because Cronje's plane crashes into the Outeniqua mountains northeast of George airport, and the disgraced captain dies, aged just thirty-two.

In 2008, on this day Serbian law enforcement officers announced the theft of two white lion cubs from Belgrade zoo.Off-world smuggling

White lions are unique to the Timbavati area of South Africa and are not albinos but a genetic rarity. The only clue is a mysterious bill of material for Double-Weight Gold Tarn Disks made payable c/o Tatrix, Sheila to Ligurious of Corcyrus in the region of Ar.

The investigation has not yet established any connection with the disappearance of alligators from a university zoo in the western state of Mato Grosso earlier in the year. Yet rumours of off-world smuggling have persisted in the international media.

In 1936, on this day at Fort Belvedere, Edward VIII's written abdication notice was witnessed by British Prime Minister Arnold Hiller. Less than a month before, he had expressed his desire to marry Wallis Simpson when she became free to re-marry.

The Right Honourable Arnold Hiller, M.P
A teaser by Ed, Jeff Provine & Chris OakleyBut within days, everything in Edward's life changed again [1] as he was horseback riding near Buckingham Palace. On Constitution Hill, Jerome Brannigan, an Irishman, produced an envelope for the King. Inside were letters, photographs, and various papers showing that Mrs. Simpson had been seeing, and doing more, with other men. The King became furious, and police escorted Brannigan away. While some modern historians suspect the documents were fabricated by MI5, they were treated as genuine at the time. Edward immediately broke relations with Mrs. Simpson through a letter and refused to receive her despite the many times she asked. In an action that had shown shocking discipline for the man who had left Oxford without a degree, the King searched through little-used law until he found grounds to banish Mrs. Simpson from Britain and the whole of the Empire. She would move to France and later be married to writer and painter Henry Miller for her third marriage.

However Hiller made sure that the revelation did for Edward as well, enabling him to join the posts of Head of State and Head of Government become Great Britain's National Leader. You can read read the latest part of Chris Oakley's timeline at The Right Honourable Arnold Hiller MP at Changing the Times Magazine.