In 1916, on this fateful day GOP Governor Hiram Johnson offered his full support to Presidential Nominee Charles Evans Hughes.
A variant installment to Mike Stone's Mr Hughes Goes to War thread.

Mr Hughes Goes to War: Part 3 based on an idea by Mike StoneDuring Hughes State visit in July, Johnson had been fully occupied with his Senatorial race. But when he swung through the state a month later, a meeting could have easily have been scheduled. Yet it wasn't, and the two men only sat down because of a curious accident - they were both staying in the Virginia Hotel in Long Beach at the same time.

In these more intimate settings, it was possible for the two politicians to informally settle their differences, and as a result Hughes received a major boost to his campaign. The true significance of that support was not fully recognized until November, when he carried the state by less than one thousand votes [1]. As a result, Woodrow Wilson narrowly failed in his attempt to become the first Democrat to win a second consecutive term since Andrew Jackson. And his campaign promise to keep America out of the war had been eliminated by a chance meeting in a Californian hotel [2].

In 636, on this day the combined armies of the Byzantine Empire and Ghassanid Kingdom defeated Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate in a major battle fought near the Yarmouk River, south-east of the Sea of Galilee. Correctly anticipating that Khalid ibn al-Walid was a fine cavalry commander who would make imaginative use of his scarce resources, the Armenian Commander-in-Chief Prince Vahan successfully managed to deal with the mounted force, countering with his own Byzantine horse and also using the sizable advantage of his armies effectively.

Famous Byzantine Victory at the Battle of YarmoukThis famous Byzantine victory was a personal triumph for the Emperor Heraclius who had recognized the rapid advance of Islam into the Christian Levan and sent a massive expedition in order to check the Muslim advance and to recover lost territory. It was a huge risk for Heraclius who took the bold decision to draw military resources away from the defence of the Empire's main granary in Egypt (this commitment gave Vahan a decisive 10:1 numerical advantage). The basis of the Emperor's calculations was that the Arab armies were still very dependant on being successful in battle in order to reward auxiliary followers with levies. He correctly assumed that ongoing defeats would eventually lead to a collapse of the war effort and the Arabs withdrawing from the region. But of course this required the triumph at Yarmouk to be followed up on with more Byzantine and Persian victories.

In 1940, addressing the House of Commons on the eve of the German invasion of Great Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that the Royal Navy had dramatically improved the Allied situation after several months of monumental victories for the Nazis.
Listen to the "The Few" Speech

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"Not long after the Fall of France, Göering's Luftwaffe had swept Fighter Command's Spitfires and Hurricanes from the skies. And so the decisive phase of the Battle of Britain would be waged not by dashing heroes in a flying service but by sailors performing their job anonymously in the depths of a ships engine room or shell room never knowing what happened if they got blown up. Nevertheless the expectation that only a handful of heroic sailors could save the islands from invasion provoked outrage from the phenomenally brave and skilled young men of the RAF Fighter Command, a truly international force which comprised servicemen from Poland, New Zealand, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Australia, Belgium, South Africa, France, Ireland, America, Jamaica, the British Mandate of Palestine and Southern Rhodesia. A glimpse at a multicultural Britain that would never be.

From a purely military perspective, the destruction of early warning radar stations followed by huge loss of pilots would severely constrain the war-time role of the RAF. Even though Churchill would dismiss calls to absorb the RAF into the Fleet Air Arm, the Fighter Command would be forced to pick and choose their battles. However, the RAF had been successful insofar as they had created a supreme overconfidence in Hitler and GroßAdmiral Raeder. And therein lie the danger of Churchill's under-recognition. Because much more significant than that intra-service rivalry was the formation of the mindset that the British alone had defeated the hitherto unstoppable Nazi war machine. One unintended consequence of the Royal Navy's triumph was a peacetime decision Churchill took eight years later in relation to immigration.

In 1948, an advertisement appeared in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport on the Empire Windrush for anybody who wanted to come and work in the UK. At that time, there were no immigration restrictions for citizens of one part of the British Empire moving to another part, and the response was immediate and overwhelming, including the calypso musicians Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner alongside sixty Polish women displaced during the Second World War. The impending departure of the ship prompted complaints from some Members of Parliament and Churchill ensured that it never sailed.

In 1991, on this day the signing of the "New Union Treaty" by eight newly independent republics effectively dissolved the Soviet Union replacing it with a Federation with a common president, foreign policy, and military.

Future CountryThe ceremony was a personal triumph for Mikhail Gorbachev who for six long years had laboured to salvage and reform the Soviet state in order to avert a complete collapse of central government function. Launched at the Communist Party Congress of July 1990 as the logical successor to the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the model of a less centralized federal system was a potential solution to the region's increasing ethnic problems.

Another perhaps more immediate problem was the political rivalry between Gorbachev, and Boris Yeltsin who only two months earlier had been elected to the newly created post of president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with 57% of the vote, becoming the first democratically elected leader of Russia in history. For the past eight weeks, Gorbachev had been unable to fulfil domestic executive function, increasingly focusing on foreign affairs and the signing of the "New Union Treaty".

The establishment's determined efforts to forestall the rise of Yeltsin had caused a bitter animosity between the two men. And so the original issue of whether the die hard Soviets would permit Gorbachev to see out his programme of perestrokia was superseded by a new question. Was the new dual power structure of Union and Russian Presidents inherently unstable, or even if it was stable would personal rivalry prevent the new model from working effectively?

That very evening Gorbachev found out the answers to those questions when he was informed that Yeltin had been placed under house arrest by the KGB. To be continued..

In 3796, on this eleventh day of Elul the noble Zealot Yəhû'dah (Judas Iscariot) was secretly executed by Roman soldiers at the Potter's Field known as Akeldama which is located outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

Field of BloodYeshua the peace-loving individual from Nazareth who officially led the rebel group had been proposing inaction ever since they arrived in the city.

Inevitably, deep frustration had set in and before too long several rebels had begun pushing for vigourous political action. The most outspoken individual was actually the treasurer of the group, a war-like character by the name of Yehuda from a place in Judah called Kerioth.

Determined to move the group forward, he paid thirty pieces of silver to the Temple Guard Malchus to request a clandestine meeting with the Sanhedrin. News of his betrayal fired Yeshua into activity, and the subsequent overthrow of the Roman authorities ensured that Yeshuda would forever be remembered as the iconic figure who symbolised the zealot-like courage of the Jews.

In 2003, on this day the junior United States Senator for Texas George W. Bush declared his intention to enter the race for the White House and challenge his Republican colleague, the 43rd President John S. McCain.

Senator BushDue to the bloody consquences of September 11th McCain had been expecting a hard fought battle for the nomination. Having declared War on Terrorism, Arab countries responded by forming an alliance - the Jihad Allied Organization - and proclaimed a world-wide Jihad against the US, its allies, and the Buddhist countries in Eastern Asia. By mid 2003, the war had spread towards the US, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia, China, France, and Great Britain.

The strength of Bush's candidacy rested upon the enthusiastic support of the religious right who had enabled him to beat Phil Gramm in 1996. He had turned away from his family after an unsuccessful bid for the Governorship just two years before.

In 2004, on this day the British newspaper Guardian, as part of a series of articles commemorating the thirthieth anniversary of Harold Wilson's assassination, published an investigative report which provided the first definitive evidence the assassins had ties to MI-6.

Thirtieth AnniversaryThis disclosure touched off a firestorm of political controversy in Britain; when a follow-up story revealed the conspirators had gotten assistance from certain CIA officers stationed in Europe at the time of Wilson's death, it sparked an imbroglio in U.S.-British relations the likes of which hadn't been seen since the Suez Crisis in 1956. In response to the uproar, then-prime minister Tony Blair ordered a full-scale government inquiry into the assassination conspiracy and dismissed a number of MI-6 officials suspected to have abetted the conspirators in covering up their actions.

A new post from the Necessary Evil Thread by Chris OakleyThe Blair government's inquiry panel would publish its findings in October of 2005; those findings would serve as the basis for further investigations by Blair's successors Gordon Brown and David Cameron and the enactment of a series of reforms aimed at strengthening civilian control of Britain's counterintelligence services. These events in turn paved the way for a final resolution of the mystery surrounding the death of the chief conspirator, known to his cohorts as "Oarsman", and the arrest of three other conspirators in the summer of 2009.

In 1858, one of the most important biological and philosophical ideas of modern society was published on this day in the "The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London". In this work, "The Father of Evolution" Alfred Russel Wallace (pictured) outlined his ideas of the environment acting as a government for the directed control of the transmutation of species, an idea already old by the mid-nineteenth century.

Wallace's Theory of Environmental Government PublishedThe body of the paper was presented while Wallace was away from London, still observing nature in Borneo, by biologists Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker and had been recommended by Wallace's friend Charles Darwin, another biologist who died of scarlet fever just before the presentation.

The paper was not immediately recognized as significant, in fact it was said by Dublin's Professor Haughton that "all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old". Despite the lack of immediate recognition, Wallace continued to determine speciation by means of "natural selection", a term he borrowed from the late Darwin. He bundled data from his experiments and observations over decades to argue against the alternate view of "sexual selection" and instead explore the effects of environment on survival. In 1889, he published On the Origin of Species, a work that combined his biological data with many of his Spiritualist beliefs. The theory was expanded to include humans in The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory of "Natural Selection". Though derided by biologists such as Hooker, other biologists such as Lyell picked up the ideas, which were to work their way into the public's general understanding of the world.

Taking into account the influence of nature, people were able to understand much of the social psychology that plagued poor living conditions. However, with such non-adaptive mental phenomena as music, mathematics, and art, it was proven that men were more than just advanced animals. The "the unseen universe of Spirit" (which was embraced as the Christian God, though has become more general in modern times) agreed with the story of Creation: cellular life on Day 3 (Genesis 1:10), animals on Day 5 and 6 (Genesis 1:20-25), and consciousness in higher animals (Genesis 1:26). Combining the two, science joined with religion to persuade the mind of man toward creating a beneficial governing environment for all humanity. On the political and economic front, many would also find similar ideals in the writings of the philosopher Marx, but the idea of communism would be superseded.

Social activists (one of whom was Wallace himself) campaigned for engineered societies to free the spirit of man rather than restrict it or sharpen the species by point of the lesser-known theory of eugenics. In the reshaping of Europe in the 1920s and the economic turmoil of the 1930s, many countries found their chances. Wallacism (a form of democratic socialism) rebuilt Germany, pervaded America and British beyond Progressivism, and served as the basis for revolution in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. The Soviet Union under Stalin's rule put down several Wallacist uprisings while Japan continued its hold on regimented Imperialism.

With the Pacific War from December 1941 to May 1944, propaganda and public sentiment would shift Wallacism into a demand for paternalism. Recalling Woodrow Wilson's words that "the world must be made safe for democracy," the Allies launched into a campaign to organize the "world environment" through the United Nations, formed after the Soviet Liberation of 1955-60. Enforced immunizations, guaranteed resource development and management, and environmental resettling camps for offenders (called by many as "brainwashing" camps) became required throughout the globe.

Though naysayers exist, high standards of living and technological development are proof that the Human Spirit is triumphing through Evolution.

In 1974, on this day British prime minister Harold Wilson was found dead on a beach in Great Britain's Scilly Isles, victim of a gunshot wound to the skull.

Liquidation by Chris OakleyInitial press reports described his death as a suicide brought on by depression over the failure of his economic policiies, but investigation by Scotland Yard detectives soon turned up evidence the late prime minister had in fact been murdered by unknown assailants; within two days of Wilson's demise a nationwide manhunt for the suspected killer or killers was on. What wasn't known as the time -- and wouldn't be known for another three decades -- was that Wilson had been assassinated by rogue MI-6 agents who'd recently learned he was spying for the KGB and decided to liquidate him before he could escape to the Soviet Union.

When the truth about Wilson's murder finally came to light in a Guardian investigative report published on the 30-year anniversary of his death, it touched off a political firestorm which rocked the British government to its core and prompted new prime minister Tony Blair to order a full-scale inquiry into the Wilson assassination. Scores of MI-6 officials were forced to resign as a result of the ensuing scandal and a dozen more arrested on suspicion of having played a role in the assassination conspiracy. The controversy even touched intelligence agencies on the other side of the Atlantic, as the CIA's European section was found to have provided the final confirmation Wilson was working for the Soviets.

In 1939, on this day Gauleiter Albert Forster received the necessary security guarantees from the British Government to protect his West Prussian constituents from the imminent threat of Polish aggression.Sopot Incident leads to War
The Free City of Danzig was an autonomous Baltic port and city-state established on January 10, 1920, in accordance with the terms of Part III Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which split it off from Germany along with other German territories. It was placed under League of Nations protection, with special economic-related rights reserved for Poland.
The Free City was to be represented abroad by Poland and forced to be in a customs union with it. The railway line that connected the Free City with newly created Poland was administered by Poland. Similarly, the Westerplatte (until then a city beach), was also given to Poland, which created a military post within the city's harbour.
Trouble was 95% of population were German-speakers, yet German inhabitants lost their German nationality with the creation of the Free City. It became clear almost at once that the overwhelming German majority population of the Free State resented the concessions which had been made to Poland and their dismemberment from Germany.
In May 1933, the Nazi Party under Forster won the local elections in the city. However, they received 57 percent of the vote, less than the two-thirds required by the League of Nations to change the Constitution of the Free City of Danzig.
League of Nations' High Commissioner Professor Burckhardt found, by 1939, his position as absolute arbiter in the endless disputes almost untenable. On September 1st, Polish soldiers destroyed the border checkpoint in Sopot; the British Government's declaration on war on the Republic of Poland and her Russian allies followed within twenty-four hours.

In his Regnal Year 12, the development of a nasty dispute between Panehsy the Viceroy of Nubia and High Priest Amenhotep presented Ramses XI with the opportunity he needed to reassert his authority as Pharaoh.

Ramses XI decides to Man-upThe coffers of the treasury were running dangerously low because of the same economic problems that were causing widespread lawlessness, disorder and famine. And it was only his control of the army that enabled him to retain his flimsy grip on Upper Egpyt. Attempting to fill this power vacuum was the Amun Priesthood and the inevitable result was a coming showdown between religious and military authorities that threatened to destroy the centralised monarchy.

Then Panehsy made his own bid for power, invading the South and forcing the Head Priest out of his temple in Luxor. Realising that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend", Ramses rejected the conventional wisdom of his vizierate who recommended that he order Panehsy back to Nubia and re-instate Amenhotep. Instead, he secretly organized a "false flag" operation under which members of his bodyguard murdered Amenhotep and destroyed the Temple. He then blamed this dastardly crime on Panehsy and had him executed.

In 1977, in an audaciously daring mission planned by Astrid Pflaume herself, members of the African-Semitic Resistance (ASR) strike Port Elizabeth Security; during the brutal firefight that follows, police officers Harold Snyman and Gideon Nieuwoudt are both killed and brother Steve Biko sprung from his incarceration in Police Interrogation Room 619. Click to listen to the Peter Gabriel tribute song "Biko"

Business as usual in Police Room 619When neo-Nazi reinforcements arrive, they find the building in a smoking ruin; the only trace of the detention is a signed copy of his banned publication I Write What I Like containing a hand written note "You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire".

As a charismatic student leader, he had founded the Black Consciousness Movement, playing a decisive role in the empowerment and mobilization of much of the urban black population. When Pflaume was later assassinated by her former allies he would assume the iconic leadership of the ASR. Appealing to the broader ethnicity of this larger group, he continued to articulate his core message that liberation was unattainable until the enemies of the Third Reich united to break their chains of servitude. Only now, the eyes of the world were watching. All of Robbie Taylor's novels are available for download at Amazon.

In AD 61, during the short-lived rebellion by Queen Boudica of the Iceni, the province of Britannia was caught in the grip of terror as barbarians besieged isolated Roman forces.

Roman Testudi Ferrei Overrun Iceni RebelsThe governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, had left for the campaigning season in Wales to settle more territory valuable to the Roman Empire with its many coal mines. Coal had become an invaluable resource to the Romans since the invention of practical steam engines late in the rule of Caesar Augustus. Much of Rome now rested under blackish-green clouds of progress as foundries and factories churned out ever-improving materials.

Progress did not come without cost, however, and the Roman Empire spent much of its time furthering conquest to ensure a supply of slaves and raw materials for the industrial behemoth. Much of the Scipio Academy's research into engineering sought to aid in conquest (as well as to receive handsome rewards from the emperors) by improving the Empire's war machine. Furthered metallurgical science aided in better armor and weapons while Archimedes' calculus helped the effectiveness of artillery.

A new story by Jeff ProvinePerhaps the greatest leap forward would be the application of a portable steam engine to carts, increasing the speed and comfort of travel by a half-breed Greek-Egyptian from Alexandria named Hero. He designed wonders for temples while schooling in Alexandria and soon left for Rome, where he would introduce his steam engine during the reign of Claudius. With an imperial grant, he worked on improving his engine and applying it to military service. He combined the steam-powered carts used for supply convoys and the testudo (tortoise) formation to create a shield-covered, self-powered armored car from which soldiers might attack without fear of reprisal. A pair of the devices were dispatched along with a cohort of the IX Legion commanded by Quintus Petillius Cerialis and were instrumental in wiping out the Iceni siege at Camulodunum. The belching smoke, grinding iron, and roaring furnace, along with the monstrous ornaments, sent barbarian soldiers fleeing in panic, many of them being run down by the front claws and heavy wooden wheels of the testudo ferreus.

In reality, the dispatch from the IX Legion attempting to relieve Camulodunum was nearly wiped out by the Iceni with only some of the cavalry managing to escape. The Briton revolt would eventually be put down after much bloodshed on both sides. Roman technological advancement with weapons such as the pila throwing spear would be instrumental in achieving an upper hand.

In 1942, in the midst of the darkest times of the Second World War, Germany and its allies had conquered most of Europe, devastated much of Britain with the Blitz, invaded the Soviet Union, and dug in over most of North Africa. Stalin demanded the rest of the Allies open a new front with Germany, but Americans and Britons disagreed where. FDR wanted to move directly on Europe, while Churchill hoped to check the Axis expansion into Africa and then strike at the "soft underbelly of Europe".

Dieppe Raid CanceledAs an exercise in logistics as well as to prove that Europe was not as wholly invincible as the Axis wanted to believe, Operation Jubilee (earlier known as Operation Rutter) was designed as a combined Canadian and British raid on the French port city of Dieppe. They would seize the major port, though holding it permanently would be out of the question.

A new story by Jeff ProvineTwo days before the launch, the Daily Telegraph published a crossword with the answer of the clue "French port (6)" as Dieppe. Suspicious, an investigation was launched under Lord Tweedsmuir and MI5. The report showed that the answer may have been a fluke, but Allied command decided not to risk the chance. Just after midnight, the mission was canceled, and the test of raiding had to be conducted elsewhere.

Churchill suggested moving forward with Operation Torch into North French Africa, but Stalin was furious at having to face Hitler's European armies alone. The cancellation at Dieppe made it seem as if the Allies were not even attempting to support the Soviet Union. Britain needed to strike somewhere to keep face, and finally the exiled King Haakon VII of Norway offered a suggestion. His country had been invaded by Germany two years before and gave fair resistance. With Norway's ports and airfields at Hitler's command, the Battle of the Atlantic continued as Nazi forces could penetrate the North Atlantic around British blockades. Churchill fell to agreement, and the raid was planned for the end of the month.

Using many of the resources already in place for Dieppe and adding much more, an Allied fleet of British, Canadians, and volunteer Americans left Scotland while battleships protected their flank from U-boats. The force landed at Trondheim in the middle of Norway, catching the German forces unawares. After a major struggle, the port was captured. German forces fell back to regroup for counterattack.

Just as Churchill prepared to pull back the assault with his point proven, word of the liberation had spread throughout the country. Rumors said that the raid was the establishment of a beachhead to march in forces for the overthrow of German invaders. The whole country erupted into rebellion, and the Germans were unable to conduct their counterattack. The Allies were left with an accidental foot in the door of Scandinavia.

At the urging of FDR and Stalin, Churchill opened up reserves of troops meant for Africa and poured them into Norway. With only a few real weeks left before winter set in, the Allies seized as much ground as they could. Hitler sent reinforcements wherever they could be spared from the Russian front, but continual assault from Norwegian sabotage and snipers slowed down the German counterattack. By November 1942, when the weather halted large military movements, Norway had been split with the north in the hands of the Allies.

During the winter, Operation Torch moved the main battles south to Africa, but Hitler was furious at the loss of gained ground in Europe. In spring of 1943, Africa fell due to lack reinforcements, all of which Hitler had reassigned to retake Norway. German forces departed from Denmark and began to raze the countryside as nearly continual fighting pressed the defending Allies back. Resources were stretched thin as the Allies pressed with Operation Husky to take Sicily, which succeeded on August 17. Italy fell apart, and Hitler had to shift soldiers to control what of Italy remained, ending the major assaults in Norway. Patton was reassigned to Norway, and the Americans pushed down the peninsula long after the rational fighting season had ended.

In spring of 1944, Operation Checkmate began with the amphibious invasion of Denmark. Smaller raids kept German forces occupied in Italy, Finland, Poland, Vichy, and Normandy in northern France, but the brunt of the attack was focused on piercing Germany. Supported by superior air power from Norwegian airbases, Allies were able to leave behind many of the Nazi satellite countries and strike straight for Berlin. Seeing that the end of the war was coming soon, Germans rebelled against an increasingly frantic Hitler. Upon the overthrow and execution of Hitler on October 12, 1944, the war with Germany was finished. Through the course of the next months, the puppet governments around Europe fell while bloody anarchy reigned over most of the continent.

At the Treaty of Yalta in 1945, Europe was broken up among the Allies for occupation and reconstruction. The Soviet Union became responsible for Eastern Europe, while Britain and America handled most of the West. North and South France were broken into occupied zones until being eventually reunited in 1955. Scholars understand that the real winners of the war was America, as the USA captured nearly all of the German scientists promoted by the Nazi government. Taking something of a generational leap ahead in development over the rest of the world, along with singly controlling atomic bomb technology until successful Soviet tests in 1954, America became the undisputed world leader for the rest of the twentieth century.

In 1996, US President Bill Clinton was assassinated on this day. Kill Bill
"He had his big fiftieth birthday party at Radio City Music Hall and [beforehand] there was a cocktail reception [at the Sheraton Hotel], and when he and [Hillary] came to the rope line .. I had my back to him, and I just kind of put .. my hand behind me and touched him [in the crotch area]". ~ Monica Lewinsky, stalker
"Entering the the vast six-thousand seat auditorium, Monica checked her ticket stub. For the first time, she noticed that she had been relegated to the cheap seats in the back of the orchestra. Suddenly, she lost it. Blinded by all the rage and resentment that had accumulated since she was exiled from the White House the previous spring, Monica turned on her heels and raced up to the stage". ~ Edward Klein, biographer
"'I need to be near him! I need to be near him on his birthday. I need to be closer.' screamed Lewinsky. Nobody was surprised about Monica. The Secret Service knew all about her. Suddenly, I put two and two together: Monica had a relationship with the President". ~ DNC Official
"Monica had become unglued. I could hear her saying the President's name over and over - Bill! Bill! Bill! And my husband's brains splattered over his Ermenegildo Zeghna necktie, a gift from this crazy stalker". ~ Hillary Clinton, US President
"Hillary had been interested in power all her life, but without Monica Lewinsky, she would have remained a scandal-scarred, unpopular First Lady without a promising political future" ~ Edward Klein, biographer
"The great irony of [Hillary's] life [was] that she achieved the Presidency not because of her widespread admiration for something she had done, but because of public sympathy over something that was done to her" ~ Michael Tomasky, political observer