In 1920, on this day the Kapp Putsch briefly ousted the Weimar Republic government from Berlin.

The Making of Comrade HitlerThe coup was planned by General Walther von Lüttwitz, fervent monarchist commander of the Berlin Reichswehr and organiser of Freikorps units in the wake of World War I, Wolfgang Kapp, a 62-year-old nationalist East Prussian civil servant, and retired general, was declared Chancellor by his troops and attempted to form a provisional government.

During the political violence in Munich, a corporal in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment Adolf Hitler was savagely beaten by Freikorps officers. But his life was saved by a Jewish art dealer called Max Hoffman [1] who had been encouraging Hitler to developing his painting and dissociate from right-wing, anti-semitic groups.

It is a turning point; although Hitler never pursued cubism as he promised, his mind set was changed forever. And just a few years later, he joined the German Communist Party, taking the first on his own road to the German Chancellery. This is a teaser for Chris Oakley's Comrade Hitler thread.

In 1881, on this day the People's Will revolutionary movement in Russia claims its greatest prize - the life of the Czar.

Peasant CountryAlexander II was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg. Sergei Nechayev, leader of the People's Will, led a small force against the Czar's son, Alexander III, and killed him before he could assume the throne. Peasants across the huge country answered the call of the People's Will to rise up against the old system and threw the country into anarchy.

The Russian Civil War lasted until 1888, when the People's Will assumed power and Nechayev named himself Prime Minister. Most of the nobility in the country was killed during the struggle, including all the members of the royal family. Most of the other countries of Europe refused to acknowledge the Peasant Country, and the French government even went so far as to set up the Russian government-in-exile in the Russian embassy in Paris. This all changed when the Great War erupted between the Central Powers and the Western Powers of Europe; each side was quite happy to woo Prime Minister Ulyonov for the might of Russia's peasant army. Ulyonov threw Russia's strength behind the West, locking the Central Powers in a vise between east and west.

Russia's entry into the war in 1916 all but ended the conflict - Austria-Hungary surrendered immediately, and the Ottoman Empire and Germany followed in the next three months. Prime Minister Ulyonov exacted a high price for Russia's involvement - the monarchies of all three of the Central Powers were deposed, and democracies set up in those countries. The Peasant Country continued exporting 'people's democracies' throughout the 20th century, causing trouble with its erstwhile western allies for decades after the war.

In 1833, on this day 23rd President of the United States Benjamin Harrison was born in North Bend, Ohio. Just eleven days after taking office, the German-American War began in the Pacific.

Birth of President Benjamin HarrisonAs imperialism spread through the Pacific in the nineteenth century, three Western powers settled on the Samoan Islands. Although it was first sighted by the Dutch, the British, Germans, and Americans competed among the local tribes for control of the strategic island chain. Germans established numerous plantations while Britain created a consulship and Americans began trading extensively from posts around Pago Pago harbor. All three nations claimed the entirety of the island group and sold weapons to the locals, sparking a civil war in 1886.

As the war continued among the tribes, the diplomats of Germany, Britain, and America met in attempt to sort out the issue in Washington in 1887. They were unable to come to any agreement, however, and left with no progress made. Instead, more warships sailed for Samoa. In 1889, German foreign minister Count Herbert von Bismarck called for a meeting in Berlin that April for a new try to calm international tensions.

A new article by Jeff ProvineIn March, however, a literal storm was brewing. A tropical cyclone of massive proportions rolled toward Apia, and natives warned the fleets anchored in its harbor with tales of a storm that had struck three years before. The captains could clearly see the signs of storms and the telltale plummet in barometric pressure. Sailing out into open sea would give the ships a chance of bracing themselves through the storm. However, each nation looked at each other to move first, and a game of chicken began.

A sudden south-westerly wind came up, pushing the cyclone farther to the north and giving the ships a chance to escape. The large British HMS Calliope managed to push its way to safety, but the smaller Germans and Americans were slower to follow. As they came to the entrance to the harbor on the north side, their engines bolstered by the wind, the two fleets became tangled up. Tempers rose to match the fury of the storm, and ships were fired upon to sabotage engines. Disabled ships were pushed back by the storm tide and smashed against the reef to the south. Hundreds ended up dead on both sides, and each blamed the other. The scuffle became a full battle, and the Americans became overwhelmed by the Germans who were able to call up reinforcements from their plantations.

Americans became infuriated. While former President Grover Cleveland had been anti-imperialist, Benjamin Harrison's term had begun eleven days before, and he took this as his first great act. After leading Congress to declare war, Harrison called the American Navy to action, assembling a fleet in San Francisco to retake Samoa once and for all.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, thirty-year-old Kaiser Wilhelm II had been on the throne less than a year. He had already begun to chafe with his ministers, particularly Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck suggested patience and to continue the planned meeting, but Wilhelm saw this war as a chance to prove German military prowess and strength in colonizing. He called for the resignation of both Bismarcks and assembled his own military advisers.

Both nations hurried to modernize their fleets, stalling the expansion of the war for months. Harrison's fleet succeeded in chasing off the Germans in Samoa, but the Kaiser was ready to dispatch a new wave of his own, and the Kaiserliche Marine was twice the size of the US Navy. Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson had moved to Samoa on an extended tour of the Pacific only months before and wrote a detailed account of the battles at sea as well as the chaos among native factions. Newspapers picked up the violent tales and contributed to the failing popularity of the war. Nearly one-third of American farmers had German backgrounds, and anti-German sentiment spread the violence to the United States as well. German immigration had halted, as had a good deal of business in trade. Harrison's "first great act" turned into a political nightmare from which he could not back down.

Finally, in 1892, Grover Cleveland was swept back into the White House, vowing to end the war. Britain hosted peace talks, saving face for both nations. While the war ended, German-American relations did not heal rapidly. Decades' worth of immigrants bent on coming to America were refused, instead heading to Germany's many colonies in Africa and the Pacific, where Samoa had been split into east-west spheres of influence. Wilhelm claimed victory in the war and successfully pursued his ideals of colonies and navy, which made a stunning show at the Fleet Review in his grandmother Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

The United States, meanwhile, struggled in an economic depression. The nation yearned for hope, and they found it in McKinley's renewed imperialism. The Spanish-American War reaffirmed America's reputation and brought Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Cuba into the fold. When the World War broke out in Europe, however, war-weariness from Americans already facing quagmire in Cuba and the Philippines refused to participate. It finally ended in 1919 as a general draw, and Wilhelm II seemed to have his fill of war, instead focusing on empire-building in Germany's many colonies.

In 2011, aware that no sane TV director would permit live coverage, pro-life activists upload home-made footage of the alien lab rats onto Youtube.

Alien Lab RatsFor several decades conspiracy theorists had sought to convince Americans that extraterrestrial life forms had been abducting humans for experimentation. And during the nineties conjecture had arisen that unexplained cattle mutilation suggested some form of deal had been brokered. But instead what emerged was a huge cover-up by the US Government because humans had been experimenting on aliens!

Inevitably a group of activists launched a rescue mission on Area 51. And before the authorities could smuggle the extraterrestrials out of the facility the group succeeded in liberating one of the "alien lab rats".

The impact of the Youtube broadcast was immediate and catastrophic. Through signals and projections that the Area 51 specialists had been investigating under controlled conditions, the alien induced a mindset change in humanity that exacerbated existing contemporary differences. Beset by division, mankind had unwittingly opened the door to alien colonisation.

In 1961, on this day the Presidential Emergency Succession Act was signed into law.

A Shock To The System Part 2 by Chris OakleyThe PESA had passed both houses of Congress with little debate, and most of that debate had centered on the issue for how the federal government would fund the expanded security appartus the new law would put in place; the debate was settled when Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon (pictured) released several million dollars in emergency funds to cover the first year of expanded protections for the President and future presidential candidates.

After 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security would take over much of the responsibility for implementing the provisions of the PESA; following the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in May of 2011 DHS agents would work with the Secret Service to secure the White House and the first family against possible retaliatory attacks by al-Qaeda sympathizers.
This article is part of the A Shock to the System thread.

In 1881, as his Sunday custom, the Czar traveled in his bulletproof carriage (a gift from Emperor Napoleon III of France) to the Mikhailovsky Manege to review the military roll call.

Alexander II Survives Assassination Attempt He was escorted by the police as well as his own guard, including his Cossack personal bodyguard. In the crowd that gathered on the narrow pavement to watch Alexander pass were agents from the Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will") bent on assassinating the Czar to instill a new order of communistic anarchy. Nikolai Rysakov was the first to strike, throwing a bomb wrapped in a handkerchief. The explosion would kill one of the Cossack guards and injure onlookers and more guards, but Alexander would prove unhurt as he stepped from his carriage. The police hurriedly apprehended Rysakov, who shouted to someone else in the crowd. Feeling the Czar was still in danger, Police Chief Dvorzhitsky threw himself over Alexander, violating the royal space but proving to save his life as a second and third bomb exploded.

A new story by Jeff ProvineAlexander would refer to the assassination attempt as "the event of 1 March 1881? according to the Old Style calendar, mirroring his notation of the first attempt on his life in "the event of 4 April 1866". Dmitry Karakozov had shot at the Czar after handing out his pamphlet entitled "To Friends-Workers" calling for overthrow. Alexander had been saved by hatter's-apprentice Osip Komissarov, who happened to bump Karakozov's arm at the time he fired, sending the shot wild. Komissarov had been granted a title, and churches were built all around Russia in celebration, but there would be yet more attempts on the Czar's life. In 1879, Alexander Soloviev shot at the Czar five times and missed, and, eight months later, the Narodnaya Volya made their first strike against him with a bombing on the railway, though the Czar's train had been missed. The Narodnaya Volya struck again two months later with a bomb in the Winter Palace, killing eleven, but missing the Czar as he was late for dinner.

The attacks came despite, or perhaps because of, Alexander's push toward reforms in his empire. He had grown up among the literati of St. Petersburg, becoming something of an enlightened ruler, and the Crimean War had left a foul taste in his mouth for military action. While he had been groomed to be an autocrat, Alexander finally refused and instigated legislation that would build railways, introduce commerce, and encourage corporations. He also improved local jurisdiction, reformed the legal code after the French fashion, updated the armed forces, and created municipal and rural police. Most famously, he liberated the serfs with his declaration on May 3, 1861, creating a class of communal, yet independent, freedmen.

This experiment with communism, which had always been among humanity in some form or another, encouraged further thought, making some historians credit the violent calls for revolt because Alexander was seen as someone who could be challenged, unlike the iron-fisted autocrats of before. After the attack on his palace, Alexander put Count Loris-Melikov in charge of solving the terrorist menace, and the count suggested implementing plans for a representative Duma as well as police action. Following his survival in 1881, Alexander announced his Duma, and elections were held that fall. With the institution of direct political reform, much of the support for revolt died away, and the Narodnaya Volya was brought down by sting operations by Loris-Melikov's secret police. Radicalism settled as public outrage softened and Alexander proved iron-fisted enough to protect himself.

Alexander II would continue his reforms until his death in 1892, modernizing Russia into an effective competitor with the growing strength of Germany. When his son Alexander III came to the throne, the new czar sought to reign in some of the power lost to the royal house, but he would die in 1895 before doing more than clarifying public bureaucracy. Nicholas II would prove a weaker czar, seemingly uninterested in affairs of the state, though he was willing to perform any duty. His lackluster care for modernization of the armed forces would prove disastrous in World War I (begun after a border dispute over jurisdiction on stolen goods taken to Serbia), but advisers from the other Allies enabled Russia to achieve a trench system to stop the charging Germans from taking territory too deep into Russia. At the end of the war, Russia surged ahead economically, using its infrastructure from the legacy of Alexander II to supply masses of raw materials to Europe from increasingly developed Siberia. The development would work to Russia's disadvantage, however, as Germany invaded in the Second World War. Nicholas III, weakened by hemophilia, died early in the war, leaving the young Alexander IV to manage the government-in-exile after German forces chased them from Moscow.

After the war, Russia's empire would fade in a similar pattern to that of Britain and France with its many vassals of the Ukraine, Finland, Georgia, and over a dozen others becoming breakaway republics. A power vacuum would come into play later toward the 1960s, instilling a new generation appealing to conservatism while remembering the greatness that once was.

In 1947, on this day United States Senator from Massachusetts Willard (Mitt) Romney was born in Detroit, Michigan. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.

Sen Romney MA-RHis passion for campaigning began in the late sixties when his father George served as Governor of Michigan. And supported by Californian Governor Nixon, Romney, Snr. calmly entered the White House in the turbulent year 1968.

But despite its initial sparkle, his father's single term of office was unremarkable and he was well beaten in 1972. The winning candidate Ted Kennedy left the Senate to occupy the White House, and his vacated seat would eventually be occupied by charismatic son Mitt. Despite Ted's desire to remain active in national politics, there would be no Romney, Jr. vs Kennedy rematch. because Ted had already made his mind up to return to California where he had campaigned in the 1960 election despite the strong reservations of his father Joseph P. Kennedy [1]. And when Mitt began to consider his own run for the White House and looked for his own source of support from California, Senator Kennedy would quickly emerge as one of his most vociferous opponents.

In 1880, on this day the founder of the Silver Legion of America William Dudley Pelley was born in Lynn, Massachusetts. An installment from the Fascist USA thread on Althistory Wiki.

Birth of an American Nazi 2He served firstly as Acting President of the United States of America after taking power in a coup de etat on April 9, 1936, and from then on as the first Chief of State of the New United States from 1936 until his death, though for the last decade of his leadership he was largely a figurehead.

Pelley's leadership of the NUS saw it come to a position as a dominant global power. His regime was marked by a strong anti-Semitic policy which saw Jews persecuted within the NUS and many deported to Europe for extermination by the Nazis, of whom Pelley was a strong admirer. Pelley's position as a close German ally during World War II saw America become a member of the Axis Powers - its military strength saw the Axis victorious in Europe but a conflict with Japan during the same period led to America's isolation from the Axis and a withdrawal into a strongly isolationist foreign policy which remains today. Pelley is the author of several works, and is the creator of the Pelley Doctrine, which dictates that the New United States will use "all force" to secure its own territory.

In 1942, General Douglas MacArthur and a select group that included his wife Jean and son Arthur, as well as Sutherland, Akin, Casey, Marshall, Charles A. Willoughby, LeGrande A. Diller, and Harold H. George, arrived in Corregidor in four PT boats.

Part 2 of 3: "Depth Charge" Doug Forced AshoreForced by the Japanese to abandon the military installation base on Guam, MacArthur et. al. were forced to seek sanctuary in the independent (and neutral) Philippine Republic. Of course they were by no means certain that such a request would be granted, but the depth charges of the Imperial Japanese Navy had damaged their escape crafts and they were left with no choice.

Despite the determined efforts of Aguinaldo, Rizal et. all the Filipino Patriots had only been partially successful in their bid for independence; instead of a Colony, the Philippines becomes a protectorate that eventually gained full independence during the 1920s when the United States was in a heavy isolationist phase. This status had been earned by fighting in World War One as a sovereign state alongside US/UK and subsequently becoming a Charter Members of the League of Nations. As a result the Washington naval treaties and the Nine Power Pact include a provision for the US to vacate the Philippine bases with the Philippine Republic sovereign and neutral with minimal military beyond constabulary forces.

Consequently, MacArthur was interned and spent the war in a luxury hotel suite in Manila with his wife and Philippine mistress. The Philippines missed World War Two in the Pacific, even though they declare war on Hitler ultimately their influence/involvement in events was limited. However, events took a further odd turn, when MacArthur emerged as the unlikely candidate for Military Governor of Japan.
This blog is an article from the Neutral Philippine thread conceived by Ed, Mike McIlvain and Scott Palter.

In 2013, disgraced judge Piero Antonio Bonnet escaped from his incarceration in the Vatican and burst into the Papal Conclave.

Crisis of the 116th CardinalClaiming to speak on behalf of "the 116th cardinal" he revealed previously undisclosed details of the Vatileaks scandal. These revelations we so profoundly shocking that the electors were forced to suspend the election process and seek deep meditation.

The Vatican authorities only became aware of this unprecedented situation due to the implausible delay in the appearance of smoke to signal the selection of a new holy Pontif.

In 1942, on this day General Douglas MacArthur, his wife Jean, four year old son Arthur and Cantonese amah Ah Che were all killed when ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy fired upon Motor Torpedo Boat PT-41 in Manila Bay. Their tragic deaths, and the surrender of Bataan and then Corregidor marked a new low point of confidence in a series of reversals that had beset the Allies since the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Death of Dug-out DougAlthough Washington could place the blame for the "Day of Infamy" on local commanders Husband Kimmel and Walter Short, the Philippine Fiasco was expected and it was a different matter altogether. For one, the mismanaged defence was organized by a trusted insider, the former US Chief of Staff, Douglas MacArthur. But he foolishly ignored warnings of an attack, and his unprepared air force were destroyed by a Japanese bombing run of the runway. Then, initial success in confronting the invaders was set back by lack of resources. Not expecting to order a retreat, MacArthur had failed to properly organize the defence of Bataan. Soon enough, he was hopelessly trapped on Corregidor Island in Manila Bay arguing that Japan had the bottle, but he owned the cork.

He then refused to join the President of the Philippines in his escape by submarine, and when ordered by the President to depart for Australia, faced a choice between a court martial or abandoning his men to die. Indecisively, he threatened to resign his commission, and fight on as a sixty-one year old private. But finally, accepting an assurance from the PT Boat Commander, Lieutenant Bulkeley that escape would be "a piece of cake" he unwisely chose a Motor Boat over a submarine. It was a final misjudgement in a string of poor decisions.

One of the many consequences of his death would be felt in North Africa. Having been falsely assured by Winston Churchill that Singapore was impregnable, after its capture the Australian Government demanded the recall of their divisions for domestic defence. Churchill had convinced Roosevelt that it was necessary to create a paper army in Australia headed by MacArthur in order to avoid that eventuality, but of course that was no longer possible.

In 1938, on this day the tin-pot army of Austrian Chancellor Adolph Schicklegruber marched into the tiny Soviet Republic of Munich. Predictably, the Füehrer's latest antics were greeted by fresh calls for the introducton of the collective security model proposed and then abandoned during the brief "Wilsonian Moment".

Happy Endings 13
Das Kleiner AnschlußUnlike the outmoded structures of the other victor nations, the American Republic's constitution encouraged a sensible level of consultation between the branches of government prior to executive action. This quickly revealed a shocking new isolationism on the Hill. Lacking a platform of popular support, President Wilson quietly dropped¹ his radical proposals for collective security and instead of attending in person dispatched his Secretary of State Robert Lansing to the Peace Conference. After months of drawn-out negotiation, Lloyd George and Clemenceau admitted their worst fears of a twenty-year armistice followed by an even more bloody conflict.

The cause of this cycle was determined to be Prussian militarism which was squarely blamed on Bismarck and his heirs. And so the unavoidable and perhaps inevitable conclusion was that the Prussian German State had to be broken up. The demilitarization of the Rhineland, and the occupation of the coal-rich Saar proceeded without much difficulty. And in fact, many aspects of the break-up went to plan, but only where Anglo-French interests were at stake. Some of the länder even refused to return to the pre-unification monarchies and one such example was Bavaria.

But by this stage, the Anglo-French Governments had decided that a mixture of different philosophies was no bad thing after all as it would "spike" a resurgence of German unity. However the small fly in this ointment was a ridiculous little man with a bad moustache. His romantic dreams of a Großer Deutschland generated concern in European Capitals and a wild level of enthusiasm in Southern Germany and Austria. But it was nothing of substance to really trouble the happy retirement years of Woodrow Wilson and his second wife Edith Bolling. After all, they had only married in 1914, and were able to fully enjoy the long autumnal years after they left the White House in 1921. Unlike Prussian Germany, their happy marriage really was a lasting union under God.

In 1689, on this day deposed English monarch James II landed in Kinsale with six thousand French soldiers and set about establishing a new Kingdom, a Catholic Stuart Ireland.

Jacobite Rule Established in the Kingdom of IrelandEver since the Reformation, the English feared that the Catholic Powers would use Ireland as an invasion bridgehead. When Cromwell led an Irish campaign, he had granted land to discharge his Protestant Army. After the restoration, it was hoped that the Stuarts would return that disputed land. And when James II was overthrown by the Williamites, it became clear that the violent clash between Protestants and Catholics would be fought to a decision in Ireland.

During the early skirmishes, acts of religious violence forced the Protestant population to flee for their lives. But of course the Catholic victory was a close run thing. Days before the Battle of the Boyne, the Earl of Tyrconnell (commander in chief of the Jacobite forces in Ireland) recognised William and opened fire. One shot grazed William's shoulder, causing him to slump over his horse which then threw him. The wild jubilation that followed was an unmistakeable sign that only the death of William could have prevented an eventual Protestant victory.

In 1776, in Baltimore, Maryland, newspapers made recognition of the fairer sex, which would be much needed as the troubles with the mother country became increasingly violent.

Beginning of Women's Suffrage in AmericaA blurb noted, "The necessity of taking all imaginable care of those who may happen to be wounded in the country's cause, urges us to address our humane ladies, to lend us their kind assistance in furnishing us with linen rags and old sheeting, for bandages". As the newspapers came out early, posted bills appeared that evening reading, "Our country's cause for liberty includes us all", reiterating the need for women to help as well as noting that men would need to share their liberty when granted. The appeal for aid would be crucial to the American war effort as well as to the quick pace of suffrage for women in the soon-to-be independent colonies.

A new story by Jeff ProvineOver the course of the Revolutionary War, women did aid in many ways such as tending to farms and businesses while men were gone to war, collecting supplies, tending to the wounded, and even participating in battle. Molly Pitcher, the nickname for who is believed to be Mary Hays, aided her husband during the darkest days of Valley Forge and even assisted in firing the cannon when he collapsed at the Battle of Monmouth. Thomas Paine (whom many began to suspect was merely making his name and fortune by writing fiery notions) produced a companion to his popular The Crisis entitled The Warm Hearth to encourage the home front as he had the soldiers. He wrote, "These are the times that try women's souls: The harvest wife and sunshine sweetheart will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but she that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman". He was much criticized for holding women in an esteem that would not be seen commonly in England until the late Victorian Era, but the bold voice was echoed by women throughout the Revolution, notably Abigail Adams as she wrote to her husband.

It would be the words of Abigail Adams that would finally assure a permanent political voice for American women. She had written her husband during the Continental Congress that she longed for a declaration of independence and, " .. by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors". The words would seemingly fall under blind eyes in 1776, but in 1787, at the Constitutional Convention, they would be reiterated along with the demands of thousands of women for the vote. Interestingly, the reason Mr. Adams attended was that he had been passed over for Minister to Britain in favor of Thomas Paine, whose growing fame among the womenfolk had made him irksome to many in Congress and wanted him more distant.

Men at the Congress were not so certain. Along with the cries for recognition were the knowing nods of conservatism, fearing what pure democracy could do to a country legally torn apart by the mob (as would be seen some years later in the French Revolution). Finally, however, Abigail would write to John about the issue of the three-fifth compromise with the struggles for the South to get representation for their population while having slaves unable to vote. Women were allowed to vote in some of the states; for example, Lydia Taft of Massachusetts had won her vote in a town all meeting after the deaths of her husband and son left her the head of the family, and New Jersey listed the only restriction on general suffrage to be possessing only fifty pounds in cash or property. Mrs. Adams noted that if voting rights were expanded in the North with its largely Federalist leaning, they would gain an advantage on popular referenda.

Adams skillfully weaved the point into the discussion in the convention and later Constitution when the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights provided for universal suffrage dependent upon property. Many local laws had already changed to be more welcoming of women, and the national consensus finally included the voice of women. Many famous ladies would speak up for rights, such as Representatives Frances Wright in 1840. The first female United States Senator, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, would be instrumental in legislation that would solve the slavery question by gradual emancipation with reimbursement to masters after instilling legal requirements for humane treatment. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, many women in the federal government would be praised for their works of social reform, though they would also be criticized for limiting America's potential in expansionism, particularly in the cases of independence retained to new territories in the Philippines, Hawaii, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

In 2008, shaken awake from the peaceful sleep of aeons into the frightful nightmare of his corrupted Paradise the Supreme Being disowns the cold-hearted stranger that man has become instead he abandons the Earth to build a new Eden on the Planet Mars.

The Reconciliation
Co-written with Jeff ProvineMonths of peeping through telescopes quickly develops into a 24x7 Internet-based fixation until technocrats step into the void of childish disappointment by promising to reverse mankind's "downgrade".

Funded by the largest PayPal fund in human history, a colloborative international project is launched which quickly consumes the global resource pool of geeks at the expense of gadget development which is temporarily put on hold. Until finally landing on the Red Planet, the wayward child confronts an angered parent exhibiting a "this better be good" expression which signals a somewhat limited patience for reconciliatary dialogue.

Disregarding a pre-prepared (but somewhat over-complicated) statement carefully drafted by World Leaders (and their lawyers), Commander Robert A. Taylor removes his helmet, looks the Supreme Being straight in the eye and delivers an emotionally shattering ad hominem - "Something was missing in our harsh world, and that was love".

In 1981, on this day Reichchancelor Kurt Waldheim (pictured in the centre) authorised a settlement of $7,000 per holocaust survivor to expatriates of Vienna's former Jewish Community. Article 46 Settlement
This action brought a financial closure at least to a series of tragic events that had begun forty-three years before.
Canadian journalist Isabel Vincent described how a marrauding group of Nazi thugs ruthless expatriated their businesses and homes and murdered some ~
"..after the German Army marched into Austria on March 12, 1938 Jews were forced by law to register their property with the Gestapo, the secret state police, which worked under the auspices of the SS, the most powerful organization within the Nazi Party. Jews were also encouraged to leave the country as per the Nazi's Jewish emigration policy. However they could only do so by buying their way out and selling all of their valuables and property at cut-rate prices to various government agencies. A year later, when the war started, confiscation by the SS was commonplace in countries occupied by the Nazis, who seemed to thumb their notes at Article 46 of the 1907 Hague Convetion on the Rules of Land Warface which states that "the honour and rights of families, the lives and private property of citizens, as well as religious convictions and practices will be respected. Private property will not be confiscated. ""

In 1938, a culmination of historical cross-national pressures to unify German populations under one nation resulted in the Anschluss - the annexation of Austria and Switzerland into Greater Germany by the Nazi regime in two phases. Anschluss Phase 1
During World War One Switzerland's neutrality was seriously brought into question by the Grimm-Hoffmann Affair. Robert Grimm (pictured), a socialist politician, traveled to Russia as an activist to negotiate a separate peace between Russia and Germany, in order to end the war on the Eastern Front in the interests of socialism and pacifism. Swiss neutrality was further compromised by one unexpected result of the peace settlement, an expansion of Switzerland itself during the Interwar Period. In a referendum held in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg on 11 May 1919 over 80% of those voting supported a proposal that the state should join the Swiss Confederation.
Later, and as a result of Aryanisation, both Germany and Austria suffered a catastrophic capital flight as huge quantities of gold and other Jewish assets had been moved to Swiss Banks in Basle.
Continues in Phase Two.