By 1647, things looked quite bleak for the settlements of the Dutch West India Company's settlements in North America. New Amsterdam, the company's most important trade centre, was lost to the English in 1665 and it was a bold stroke that the Dutch naval captain Jurriaen Aernoutsz captured the French settlements of Acadia along the Kennebec River during the Franco-Dutch War of 1674.
This post was written by Dirk Puehl the highly recommended author of #onthisday #history Google+ posts.

The Foundation of Nieuw Zwolle and the Republic of New HollandNaming the place New Holland, Aernoutsz appointed a governor and went to the Dutch West Indies to find willing colonists for the WIC's latest acquisition. Returning with a shipload of them, the experienced skipper managed to slip behind three English men-of-war out of Boston who tried to intercept him and land in what was to become the capital Nieuw Zwolle at the mouth of the Kennebec in Penobscot Bay. This day, April 19th 1674, marks the actual beginning of New Holland.

Settling various differences with His Majesty's Colony of Massachusetts and the English, Aernoutsz and his new governor Cornelius van Steenwyk pushed northwards towards New France and the St Lawrence River valley. Without resources to speak of from the mother country, Aernoutsz rose above himself in diplomatic skill, managed to form an alliance with Massachusetts' governor Josiah Winslow and the Iroquois Confederation and his colony of New Holland and captured Montreal in 1678 and Quebec early in 1679.

Teeth-gnashing, the French had to accept a major loss of their New France territory with the Treaty of Nijmegen. The Dutch Republic was with one stroke one of the players in the round of North American colonial powers again.

Grown rich on the fur trade, New Holland participated actively in the War of the Spanish Succession and gained the French territory of New Brunswick under the Treaty of Utrecht and the Seven Years' War saw them expand to the Eastern shores of the Great Lakes.

The relationship between the New Hollanders and the English in Rupert's Land on the Hudson Bay and the East Coast was never easy and took a while to heal after the colony joined the mother country in declaring war on the British during the American War of Independence, ending with a territorial status quo of the colonies after the Peace of Paris in 1783.

New Holland almost faced Civil War, when Napoleon occupied the Netherlands in 1795 between the pro-Napoleonic faction and the Onafhankelijkheid party who wanted their own, independent North American Republic. The later President of the Republic of New Holland, Willem van Steenwyk, a descendant of Cornelius, won the relatively bloodless conflict and the country was proclaimed a republic on June 21st 1796 in Nieuw Zwolle.

Since 1949, with independence the status of New Guinea had been a bone of contention between the Netherlands and Indonesia. Shortly before the independence the Dutch government had unilaterally decided that New (West) Guinea would remain Dutch even after the official recognition of Indonesian independence.

War in New GuineaIn the decade that followed Indonesian president Sukarno would repeatedly call for annexation of New Guinea, and in 1958 the tensions started to boil over. A more conservative Dutch government, backed by guarantees from American minister of Foreign affairs John Foster Dulles, started reinforcing the Dutch military presence and created a law that would allow Dutch soldiers to be stationed overseas.

The Indonesian government also upped the stakes, parachutists were landed on New Guinea and leaflets dropped. Although direct confrontation was avoided for now the Indonesian military was clearly flexing it's muscles.

The first combat action happened in january 1962, when three Indonesian motor torpedo boats loaded with infiltrators were intercepted by the Dutch navy. One MTB was sunk by a Dutch frigate another ran aground and the third was damaged by Dutch fire. In the intervening years Indonesia had gotten closer to the Soviet Union and the Soviets started sending troops to Indonesia started sending alongside the weapons that were already being sold to that country.

The Dutch government decided to up it's military presence in the region with extra soldiers and an anti-aircraft battalion to bolsters it's . While tensions mount the US tries to pressure both parties into a diplomatic solution, but in early august negotiations break down as Indonesia demands the transfer of New Guinea on 1 january of the next year.

On 15 August the invasion fleet takes to the sea, and a Soviet submarines slips into the harbour while 5 others take up position to block any seagoing vessel entering or exiting the waters around New Guinea.

Although the Dutch forces were in a state of readiness the attack still takes them by surprise. The fuel tanks in Mankovari harbour go up in flames, followed shortly by the frigate anchored there, in the chaos the Soviet submarine escapes unnoticed.

One of the other two frigates is badly damaged by a torpedo attack as it sails to Mankovari and barely manages to limp into port.

The third frigate attempts to intercept the Indonesian invasion fleet, but is itself intercepted by the Soviet submarines and turned back. Meanwhile thousands of Indonesian and Soviet soldiers start disembarking.

Although US president John F. Kennedy sharply denounces the Indonesian actions no military aid will be forthcoming, and any mention of the Soviet forces is studiously avoided. With the Americans tied up in Vietnam the Dutch soldiers conduct a valiant but vain defence of the Island. Within two weeks the main Dutch positions have all been taken and the threat of Soviet submarines is preventing reinforcements. Even the Dutch aircraft carrier Karel Doorman which has hastily steamed towards the East is kept at bay by the submarine threat.

Back in the Netherlands the government unilaterally declares a ceasefire as it's last act before resigning. Although Indonesia now holds all of New Guinea it will take months before this is officially recognized, the parliamentary elections fail to create a stable coalition. It is not until 19 april 1963 that a peace agreement is signed, and even then the agreement is little more than a recognition of the status quo in exchange for repatriation of all Dutch prisoners of war.

In 1913, on this day Imperial police arrested dozens of subversive intellectuals gathered at the Café Central, a notorious coffeehouse in the Old Town of Vienna.

The Arrests at the Central Cafe, Part 1In the struggle, an innocent member of the Viennese intellectual scene was killed. This was the famous Austrian neurologist Dr Sigmund Freud, who had the misfortune that evening of wandering across from his favourite haunt, the Café Landtmann on the Ring.

Drawn together into custody were an assorted group of trouble individuals including Josip Broz, Leon Bronstein, Adolf Schicklegruber and Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Of various ethnicities drawn together by the brutalizing experience of senseless murder, the inner core of a revolutionary ring was formed. Upon their release, they set about ending the polyglot rule of the Habsburg's and their dastardly suppression of multi-nationalities across Europe.

The events had been triggered by the expiry of Emperor Franz Joseph (pictured) who had ruled since the revolution of 1848. The crackdown ordered by his successor Franz Ferdinand would cause a second, much more bloody overthrow that would end centuries of Habsburg rule.

In 1916, in response to unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans, American President Woodrow Wilson delivered on April 18, 1916, an ultimatum that continued attack on American ships would provoke war. The next day, Neiu Nederlander President Theodoor van Rosevelt (pictured) traveled to Washington to show his agreement. If the US went to war, the American Dutch would bravely join them.

April 19, 1916 - Neiu Nederlanders back AmericansThe two nations had grown up alongside one another as Europeans colonized North America. The English threatened to eliminate the Dutch from their holdings of New Amsterdam when four frigates occupied the harbor. Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, after considering ceding the land in hopes of retaking it, decided to head off a Second Anglo-Dutch War and refused. After firing on the city, the frigates were rebuffed and returned to England empty-handed.

Since that time, New Amsterdam quickly expanded. Jews ousted from Brazil as Portugal retook Dutch conquests flooded into the city, and immigrants from all over the world were accepted. The economy flourished as pelts were harvested from the upper Hudson and established shipping. When the twin states of New England and Great Virginia declared independence from Britain, the Dutch granted support first financially and then through its impressive navy. When Napoleon conquered the Netherlands in Europe, Neiu Nederlands announced its own independence.A new article by Jeff Provine

Relations between Neiu Nederlanders and Americans were amicable. They were particularly close with New England due to ties in shipping and manufacturing, although relations were at times strained while the United States to the south determining water rights of Lake Erie. When New England broke off trade with the US over slavery, the Nederlanders maintained a lucrative neutrality. The sudden surge of trade brought about a new golden age, which led to a great deal of corruption that responded in a powerful Progressive Movement, headed by the young Theodoor van Rosevelt.

Rosevelt was part of the wealthy and politically influential family that had begun with Claes Maartenszen van Rosevelt, who purchased a large farm on Manhattan Island that would translate into enormous wealth as the city grew. Theodoor was born in 1858 and struggled through his childhood suffering from asthma. He overcame the disease by determination and exercise with seeming limitless energy, features that would define his life. After his education, Theodoor traveled extensively to the American West as well as Dutch holdings in the Caribbean and South America. He returned and entered civil service, soon becoming Director of the Navy where he built a canal through Panama and led the Great White Fleet on its tour around the world. By 1910, he was elected President.

When war erupted in Europe, Rosevelt hoped to join quickly and use the impressive New Dutch fleet, but business was too good trading through the neutral Netherlands. Despite his extensive campaigning, it wasn't until the Americans threatened Germany that he finally gained the agreement of shipping interests who disapproved of attacks by uboats. In 1917, unrestricted submarine warfare resumed, and a joint declaration of war was announced. Thanks to Rosevelt's anticipation, New Dutch troops joined the front almost immediately.

In 1917, on this day the Russian Marxist theorist and German Agent Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (codename Lenin) died of a heart attack about upon by the rejection of his call for an immediate socialist revolution (his "April Theses") by the Petrograd Soviet.

Death of LeninWritten on the train from Geneva and based upon his early theory of imperialism, the theses was more radical than virtually anything Lenin's fellow revolutionaries had heard. And just four weeks after the fall of tsarism, his thought process was completely out of context as a result of his isolation from mainstream political doctrine. Only later was the discovery made of an insidious German plot to force Russia out of the Great War.

To Lenin's huge disappointment, resistance was overwhelming. Pravda's editorial board refused to print it on the pretext of a mechanical breakdown in its printing press. And a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on April 6 passed a negative resolution on them. Just twenty-four hours before his heart attack the Petrograd Committee had overwhelmingly voted the manifesto, two voting in favor, thirteen against, with one abstention.

However Lenin's death was not the end of the germ of communism that the Imperial German Government had placed in the sealed train from Switzerland. After the war, his political heir Leon Trotsky left Russia heading Westwards. He would later become a Political Commissar in the Sparticist Government in Berlin. In 1940, he would be sent to Geneva where the League of Nations was debating St Petersburg's request for military assistance to defend Republican Russia's territorial integrity from German Communist aggression.

In 1721, on this day the first Vice President of the United States Roger Sherman was born in Newton, Massachusetts.

Birth of Roger ShermanHe is especially notable for being the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States: the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Association, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution.

With John Adams reluctantly accepting his greater suitability for the position of Supreme Court Justice, Sherman emerged as the leading candidate for Vice President. "a man who never said a foolish thing in his life" ~ Jefferson on ShermanIt was an inspired choice, through measured advice at cabinet he successfully acted as an anti-Federalist counter weight to the excesses of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.

Health permitting, he could have risen to the Presidency itself; but instead, Washington was succeeded by Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, a man who might well have quit the cabinet had Hamilton not been forced out. And therein lie the problem, because by the time of the "revolution of 1800" Burr, Hamilton et al had joined forces and returned with avengeance, armed with a mandate to dismantle the Jeffersonian governance structure.

In 1969, on this day the actor Eldred Gregory Peck was appointed United States Ambassador (Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary) to Ireland.

Great AdventureNeedless to say the appointment of a lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party would have been unthinkable had the Republicans won the recent Presidential election. The GOP nominee, Richard Nixon had actually placed him on his enemies list due to his liberal activism. This was primarily due to his opposition to Hollywood blacklisting; in 1947 he signed a letter which deplored a House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of alleged communists in the film industry.

An intensely private man, Peck had only accepted the "great adventure" because of his Irish ancestry. That flowery description of the new role was his own phrase, but surely the timing of his arrival in Ireland on the eve of the sectarian violence surrounding the "Battle of the Bogside was precipitous.

Peck had not sought political office. He had politely, but firmly declined, offers to run against Ronald Reagan for State Senate in 1964, and later the Governship of California in 1968. After the elections, Democrat supporters (including the defeated incumbent Governor Edmund Brown) were convinced that his charisma, and celebrity status, could have defeated his fellow actor.

A political confrontation between the two actors finally occurred in 1987 when Peck did the voice over on television commercials opposing Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of conservative jurist Robert Bork. Bork's nomination was defeated to the disgust of many, including another actor Charlton Heston who registered his protest by formally joining the Republican Party.

In 1861, on this day fifty-three year old Colonel Robert E. Lee of Virginia accepted responsibility for the defense of Washington D.C. (and a promotion to the rank of Major-Rank) just twenty-four hours after his native state of Virginia narrowly voted against the motion to secede from the Union.

Major-General Robert E. LeeBut almost immediately, frustration replaced the sharp sense of relief that secession had been limited to the Deep South States.

Commander-in-Chief Winfield Scott had formulated the "Anaconda Plan" which centred on a land-based advance contingent upon either the belligerence or acquiesence of the Dixie Border States. In the event neither of these two conditions were met. Instead, declarations of neutrality from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky created a buffer state on the Eastern theatre.

To confuse matters further, the "conditional" Unionists who voted down secession had done so in the conviction that the Union would not pursue a policy of coercion. In fact there were two major blockers to coercion, being the 90 day troop policy and the impossibility of attacking Dixie with five states in the way. Nevertheless, President Lincoln was pressing hard for action, and an aggressive new strategy was quickly devised - for the US Navy to transport Union Forces by sea for an amphibious landing at Savannah.

Due to his iconic role in leading the US Marines at the Harpers Ferry Raid, both Lincoln and Scott naturally selected Lee for this mission, even though he had been privately hoping to see out the war in the barracks and avoid any conflict between loyalty and duty. Mistaking Lee's relucantance for timidity, Scott compounded the error by barking "I have no place in my army for equivocal men!"...

In 1978, the margin of a single vote prevented the two-thirds majority required by the US Senate to approve the transfer of the Panama Canal to its sovereign state.

National DivideDefeat in the Senate was a bitter blow for President Jimmy Carter's foreign policy at a critical time when the effectiveness of his administration was under severe scrutiny. The previous September, Carter had signed two treaties with Panama's leader, General Omar Torrijos Herrera. The first provided for the gradual transfer of the canal to Panamanian control on 31 December 1999. The other declared the canal neutral territory and open to vessels of all nations. However, the US has retained the right to defend the canal, preferably in support of Panama but alone, if necessary.

There had been fierce domestic opposition to the prospect of giving up the canal which critics argued was a necessary part of the US's defences despite the fact that the Canal could not accommodate the larger vessels which had become part of the US fleet by the time of the Korean War. And yet the irony of the United States refusing to return a canal to its sovereign states was not lost upon the British Government, nor the former President M. Michael "Duke" Morrison who went against fellow conservatives by supporting the Panama Canal Treaty. Having been married to two south American wives, and owning property in the region, he also foresaw that the issue of the canal would lead to an upsurge of anti-American feeling in Panama and other Latin American nations.

In 1853, President William King died today after losing a battle with tuberculosis. This comes as a shock to the nation, which is still coming to terms with the death of President-elect Franklin Pierce (pictured), who was killed on January 6th of this year in a train derailment in Andover, Massachusetts.

Death of President William KingKing had been suffering with an incurable case of tuberculosis when he was sworn in on March 4th as the fourteenth President of the United States, a distinction that would have been given to Pierce. Too ill even to travel to Washington, D.C, he was sworn in during a limited ceremony at his plantation in Cahaba, Alabama, and remained there for the remainder of his life. He was the first president since John Adams to officially reside somewhere other than the White House.

Though the shortest presidency in American history, it was extremely controversial just the same. Favoring the Kansas-Nebraska act, King succeeded in pushing the Transcontinental Compromise through Congress. The compromise stated that Kansas and Nebraska would eventually be admitted into the Union as slave states, which favored the southern states; and the Transcontinental railroad would run from New York to Chicago before heading south to St. Louis and continue due west to the California coast, which superseded most of the southern states and favored northern interests.

With only forty-five days as President, King did not have time to select a vice president, though it was believed that King's longtime friend James Buchanan had been considered. In accordance with the Constitution, President Pro Tempore David Atchison will become acting President. Having such a prominent pro-slavery activist in the White House carries the danger of splitting the nation over the issue of states' rights.

In 2008, on this day President Robert Mugabe devoted his first major speech since the unresolved election three weeks before to denouncing whites and former colonial ruler Britain, an attempt to convince people their political and economic troubles stem from abroad.

Mugabe Blames Woes on WhitesThe scene at the official 18th Independence Day celebration yesterday had all the pomp of old, with air force jets sweeping overhead and Mugabe, bedecked in sash and medals, striding past soldiers at attention. But any private observances by ordinary Zimbabweans were likely muted - prices for food, gasoline and drinks have more than doubled just in the past week amid an economic meltdown that has emptied store shelves and idled four of every five workers.

"There are black people who are putting prices up, but they are being used by the whites," Mugabe said, promising to tighten laws that set prices and to crack down on - and possibly take over - businesses that break the rules. Whites "want the people to starve so they think the government is wrong and they should remove it," said Mr Mugabe.

The opposition and independent economists blame Mugabe's economic policies for the collapse of what was once southern Africa's breadbasket. Often violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms that began on Mugabe's orders in 2000 put land in the hands of his cronies instead of productive farmers, black or white, and agricultural production slumped. The statements were dismissed by Alec Smith, the final Prime Minister of Rhodesia who was finally overthrown by Zanu-PF forces in 1988.

Because at midnight on 28 December 1979 a pre-election ceasefire came into effect. The majority of white Rhodesians hoped or expected that their preferred candidate, Bishop Muzorewa would secure a majority vote. However, it did not take long for experts to work out that this would not come to pass. Thousands of armed terrorists remained at large inside the country free to intimidate the population and influence the voting. Commanders of the Rhodesian security forces informed General Walls of this, and he tried to persuade Lord Soames, the temporary governor sent out by Britain to preside over the election, to disqualify ZANU. Soames gave Mugabe several warnings, but took no further action to prevent ZANU from taking part in the election.

Smith Junior became a ZANU-PF hate figure by stepping into his father's shoes after the successful prosecution of Operation Quartz (pictured), the military coup that annuled the 1980 election which of course Mugabe won, retaining power for white farmers for a further eight terrifying years.

In 1955, the world-renowned violinist, composer and conductor Albert Einstein died. Born March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany, the young Albert displayed an early aptitude for music, as well as for mathematics. In his early teens, he attended the progressive Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich, where his musical talent was recognized.

Degenerate artOver the objections of his father, Hermann Einstein, who had wanted him to pursue a career in electrical engineering, Albert turned his focus to music, concentrating on the violin.

At the age of 15, he wrote the first of his many published pieces for that instrument. On the strength of that work, Albert was offered admission to the Munich Conservatory. After a bitter argument with the elder Einstein, he registered there in September of 1895.

Einstein's musical fame grew swiftly. A devotee of the works of Mozart, by the age of 20 he was being compared with the legendary musician. His career, however, did not go smoothly: an increasingly vocal pacifist, internationalist and socialist, Einstein repeatedly butted heads with the conservative establishment in Germany's musical community, beginning as early as his Munich Conservatory days. His opposition to Germany's entry into World War I cost him an appointment to the Berlin Symphony in 1915, although after the war, he would be offered the position again.

Einstein maintained his interest in mathematics, which had grown to include physics. Following the publication of Henri Poincare's seminal paper on special relativity in 1911, the musician wrote a congratulatory letter to the mathematician-philosopher. Einstein would later correspond with other mathematicians and physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, who would extend Poincare's work into the general theory of relativity in a paper published in 1927.

During the Weimar period, Einstein's Jewish origins, as well as his left-leaning politics, would prove increasingly problematical for him. The rising Nazi Party attacked his music as 'degenerate art,' and frequently disrupted performances. Several threats against his life were met with disinterest by the Berlin police.

On January 30, 1933, German president Paul von Hindenburg appointed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler chancellor of the Weimar Republic, dooming that regime after only thirteen years. Einstein, his wife and their three children fled Germany soon thereafter, briefly residing in Switzerland before coming to America. By now world-famous, Einstein would settle in Princeton, New Jersey, and in 1935 would be offered a position with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, which he would accept. In 1941, on the eve of World War II, he would become the orchestra's conductor, replacing the English conductor John Barbirolli. Einstein would remain in that position until his retirement in 1953.

The Second World War deeply distressed Einstein. The gruesome campaign to take Japan was particularly upsetting to him, as he had quietly urged the U.S. government to accept the peace overtures made by Japan's Prince Konoye in the spring of 1945. The harsh occupation of Japan following its fall in the spring of 1946 and the execution of Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal prompted Einstein to write an op-ed piece for the New York Times questioning whether America, in the name of overthrowing a despotic regime and winning the war, was not becoming an empire as dangerous as any in the Axis. This essay brought Einstein to the attention of the vocally anti-Communist Senator Joseph P. McCarthy of Wisconsin and would lead to his interrogation by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948. Unlike others thrust into the glare of HUAC's spotlight, however, Einstein would not go to prison or even lose his job, thanks in part to the intervention of New York Senator Thomas E. Dewy, then the Republican presidential candidate. Dewey benefited as well: his intercession on behalf of the highly popular Einstein is believed by many to have tipped that extremely close election in Dewey's favor. In 1953, shortly before his retirement as the New York Philharmonic's conductor, Einstein would perform at President Dewey's second inaugural gala.

In 1790, on this day America's first president, Benjamin Franklin, died in the capitol at Philadelphia in the middle of his first term.
This article is part of the American Heroes thread.

Passing of President FranklinHe was a major figure in the American Enlightenment before joining the patriot cause. Matched only by George Washington amongst the Founding Fathers, he was the universal choice when the General declined the Presidency [1].

And yet his term of office ended in bitter acrimony. Because in February 1790 he gave his full public support to Congressional petitions submitted by Quakers and also the Pennsylvania Abolition Society [2]. Consideration of a National Emancipation Plan was demanded, but the abolitionists were out-foxed by that master of parliamentary procedure James Madison. He ensured that the Committee Report was revised by the House, creating a legislative precedent making it unconstitutional to "attempt to manumit them [the eighteen-year moratorium on Congressional action to abolish slavery] at any time". In his diary an unhappy General Washington noted that "the slave issue has [been] put to rest but will soon awake" [3].

Franklin was of course fully aware that the Philadelphia Agreement had taken the power to abolish slavery out of the hands of the Northern States until at least 1808 when the slave trade itself was expected to end. Nevertheless he knew that the institution of slavery was incompatible with the principle of liberty established by the revolution, and therefore the possiblity of secession from Deep South States was an acceptable risk for the infant Republic. Private letters later revealed that he was absolutely convinced that Georgia and South Carolina were bluffing.

His death therefore opened up a whole series of debates. Obviously the need to move the ownership of legislative precedent into a much stronger Supreme Court, perhaps the need for the Churches to own the issue of slavery as a sin requiring national purging. But instead his "Farewell Address" he characteristically took the higher ground, calling for Presidential Leadership on the issue up until 1808 when the moratorium on the slave trade would expire. This was viewed in the Deep South as a warning of the possible creation of a North Atlantic Confederacy which would exclude slave-owning states at a minimum Georgia and South Carolina.

In 1968, even before the Apollo spacecraft crashed into the Moon the knives were out for the thirty-fifth President of the United States John F. Kennedy.
An installment of the No Apollo 1 Fire thread.

No Apollo 1 Fire, Part 3
The Political Assassination of John F. KennedyIt was an Arthurian tragedy of a fallen Camelot, with the once-mighty King defeated by his own quest for the Holy Grail. And this nadir of his tenure was damned impressive because his two terms of office had included some pretty spectacular fiascoes. That long, LONG list of reversals for Team America included the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Bay of Pigs invasion, troop withdrawal from South Vietnam (and the subsequent Communist takeover), grid-locked legislative agenda on Civil Rights and of course coercion into the early withdrawal of Jupiter IRBMS from Turkey.

Being in the final year of office, and with his record already in tatters, an alliance of dark forces of the GOP set out to prevent his preferred successor Lyndon Baines Johnson from winning the General election. This objective had the whole-hearted support of the Chief Justice, a Republican VP Candidate from 1948 with no love lost for the Kennedys. Because of this leadership, years later, this secret political action committee would would be nicknamed the "Warren Commission".

In 1968, on this day brothers Július and Alexander Dubček were finally re-united after a forty-year long period of separation.

Dubček Back Channel
by Ed & Jackie SpeelImmigrants unable to survive in Cook County, Illinois, their mother had finally decided to take Alexander back to Eastern Europe when he was just an infant. Meanwhile their father had anglicized the family name to Young. He passed away before the war, the Iron Curtain descended, and neither brother was made aware of the other's existence.

Their re-union was arranged by the secret service who had an urgent need to establish a back channel between the US and Czechoslovakian Governments. And the full truth only came out at their meeting. Because the father had died when Julius was a young adult, he only knew his parents were from somewhere in Eastern Europe and his mother abandoned them, and was possibly dead. But in fact both had nurtured successful political careers. Alexander of course was the national leader driving the Prague Spring. Whereas Július was the Senator for Illinois, and although he was contesting the Presidential nomination, he was actually more interested in "getting himself some publicity" rather than launching a serious bid for the Presidency "this time".

Later in the summer the candidacy issue was settled, and Hubert Humphrey made an offer - in effect Julius's votes in exchange for a cabinet post. Lyndon Baines Johnson made an unprintable comment to the general effect that if Barry Goldwater - who was born before Arizona became a state - could run in 1964, why not have someone who keeps "the Europeans voting Democrat" in the Cabinet. Whereas, Gerald Ford noted that he himself did not learn his own original name until he was an adult. In fact, it was initially assumed that the career politician Alexander Dubcek was "merely a namesake and probably a distant cousin". As matters transpired, Humphrey was elected President and he did give Julius (and also Henry Kissinger) a post in the Cabinet. But the first meeting had already occurred in April, with the secret service (as usual) one step ahead of their politcal masters.

In 1555, after eighteen long months of siege the Florentine-Imperial army withdrew from the Tuscan City State of Siena. Although it had been in existence for four centuries, its survival had become precarious ever since the beginning of the Italian War. When the Republic was defeated by the rival Duchy of Florence in alliance with the Spanish crown its future independence looked very bleak indeed.

Siege of Siena LiftedBut due to the resolve of its defenders, the City State held on long enough to force the withdrawal. And in so doing, the Grand Duchy abandoned its ill-fated attempt to force the incorporation of the Republic of Siena. Inadvertently it had spawned a dystopian monster, permitting the ruling Strozzi Family to expand the City State into a Sienese Empire.

At the heart of this remarkable success was the Monte dei Paschi, the oldest surviving bank in the world. And the financier of mercenary armies that conquered Southern Italy in the forthcoming centuries.

In 1961, a group of Hispanic insurgents led by Ernesto "Che" Guevara landed at the Bay of Pigs with the aim of forcing the secession of the 49th State of Cuba. An installment from the 49th State thread.

La Batalla de GirúnBecause statehood on January 1, 1959 had escalated rising tensions on the island that had been building ever since the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. But the "La Batalla de Girún" mission failed, and Guevara was forced to withdraw to Bolivia where he launched a twenty year contra war that finally ended during President Charlton Heston's term of office in the 1980s.

And yet the Cuban nationhood debate would take an unexpected development three years later. In 1964, the youthful and charismatic Lieut. Gov. Fidel Castro of Cuba was elected to the U.S. Senate. Castro, a former law student who entered politics in the 1950s, would be an impassioned voice for America's growing Spanish-speaking populace, and would be one of the sponsors of the Senate resolution formally granting statehood to the Philippines.

In the Senate, Castro would start out as a solidly moderate Democrat who initially supported the war in Vietnam, but will grow disillusioned, finally announcing his outright opposition in 1969. His change of heart would anger many conservatives in his home state, sparking a challenge from Republican Rep. Fulgencio Batista, a decorated Korean War veteran, in 1970. Sen. Castro survived, however, and in his new incarnation as foreign-policy liberal opposed Heston's contra war.

In 2000, in a hotly-contested election, Democratic nominee Fidel Castro narrowly defeated former Texas governor George W. Bush to win the U.S. presidency, becoming the first native Spanish-speaker to hold that office. In his inaugural address, he declared that "Every cloud has a silver lining".

In 1979, on this day US President George W. Romney awarded the Medal of Freedom with Distinction to his illustrious predecessor, the incomparable Richard Milhous Nixon.

President George W. Romney, RebootDuring his transformational Presidency, he instituted price controls, established the EPA and pressed for universal health care. Outside this domestic sphere, he normalized relations with China and authorised Ares 1 the NASA program that concluded with the manned mission to Mars.

Although Romney sought success by association, the truth was that he had been a marginalised figure during the Nixon Presidency. Before this, he had served as the Chairman and president of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962 and the 43rd Governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969. His solo race for the White House had ended after a series of gaffes on the campaign trail. But two weeks before the convention was to meet in Miami Beach, Florida, Nixon learned that Agnew had apparently been taking kickbacks from state contractors and he turned to Romney for the VP slot.

Although he ultimately failed to gain a second term, his son Mitt Romney managed to build upon his legacy by winning the 2008 Presidential Race. But he also left a mixed record on the same issues by introducing Affordable Health Care and putting American Car Manufacturers through a process of managed insolvency declaring that "I will let Detroit go bankcrupt".
This post is a variant ending to the article Death of President George Romney by Eric Lipps.

In 1985, Konstantin Chernenko died of heart failure at the age of 73; his top deputy, Grigory Romanov, succeeded him as CPSU Secretary General.

The Death of ChernenkoChernenko's death came just three days after he was admitted to a Moscow hospital for stroke. In Romanov's first televised address as Soviet head of state, the new CPSU leader pledged to crush the PLM rebellion by the end of the year-- a pledge that he would prove unable to keep with the Red Army's already precarious morale continuing to further decline and NATO intelligence agencies funneling new weapons to the rebel forces.

On the very day Romanov was appointed Secretary General, in fact, the former chief of staff for the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany(GSFG) committed suicide.

A new installment in the Necessary Evil threadAlso on this day in 1985, Cuba and France opened negotiations for an economic assistance pact meant to fill the gap in foreign aid to Havana left by nearly five straight years' cuts in Soviet financial support to the Castro government. These negotiations would mark the beginning of a ten-year-long shift in Cuban economic policy which would see Havana relax some of the laws banning private enterprise that Fidel Castro had instituted after overthrowing Fulgencio Batista in 1959.