Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2025 5:02 pm
November 1975
November 1: Kaiser Wilhelm V signs an act which authorises the Kriegsministrie to raise four further regular divisions of the Imperial German Army, bringing it to a strength of 40. Additionally, the establishment of a number of intermediate formations, provisionally designated as kampfgruppe, is authorised by separate provisions, allowing for coordination and deployment of further field forces without exceeding peacetime levels agreed upon at Stockholm in 1961. The Reserveheer, Landwehr and Heimwehr are to remain at their currently appointed levels, whilst the Ersatzheer is to continue to not organise units above regimental strength.
November 2: A 22 year old student attempts to throw a fire bomb through the window of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton sees his would-be arson attack rebound upon himself through the arcane defences of the now-standard repulsion spells placed on royal residences and special government properties across Britain; a mistake in the casting ritual had resulted in such protection being applied to past as well as present royal palaces. A quick thinking constable hurls the unfortunate fellow into the reflecting pool, putting him out before placing him under arrest for the attempted blaze, which does not seem to have any immediate political motives. Despite some initial consideration of charging the man under the Treachery Act, he is tried for attempted arson and sentenced to 20 years hard labour.
November 3: Formation of Telecom and Australia Post as separate telecommunications and postal Commonwealth corporations under the auspices and control of the Postmaster General’s Department in Australia. The move comes as the first phase of the Hawke Government’s modernisation of Australia’s communications networks.
November 4: Young logger, Travis Walton, 22, disappears from a worksite in the Turkey Springs area of the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest in the vicinity of Snowflake, Arizona, apparently without a trace, after climbing out of a truck to investigate a strange light hovering above the ground. After initially fleeing in fear, his workmates report the incident to the local sheriff, and a large scale search begins over the next four days. On the fifth day, Walton places a collect call to his sister from a phonebox in Heber, outside the Hotel California. Subsequent medical tests indicate the presence of some form of intravenous injections, but no sign of known medicines or chemicals in his bloodstream, whilst an FBI wizard detects unknown strands in his aura, leading to the investigative team concluding that this was simply a case of spontaneous atmospheric drunkeness caused by the accidental release of lifting gases from a fallen weather balloon.
November 5: Italian food, beverage and consumer goods conglomerate Bertorelli S.p.A. purchases the Pizza Hut fast food restaurant chain from the Carney brothers for $200 million, as part of patriarch Maresciallo d'Italia Alberto Bertorelli’s ongoing quest to obtain a controlling interest in the global pizza market. This successful drive, which has seen the acquisition of a number of restaurant chains and food production groups, has been motivated by Bertorelli’s dismay upon sampling an American pizza whilst in Washington for a NATO conference a decade ago.
November 6: A policy meeting at the Conservative and Unionist Central Office at Smith Square, chaired by Party Chairman and Shadow Home Secretary William Whitelaw and consisting of Leader of the Opposition and Conservative Party Leader Sir Enoch Powell, the 28 members of his Shadow Cabinet and Opposition Chief Whip Sir Francis Urquhart, fixes upon the Party’s strategy for next year’s general election, consisting of a move to outmatch Labour on defence and national security; to formulate and advocate a distinct economic policy based around reduction in personal and corporate taxation, simplification of individual tax brackets and investment in key infrastructure; providing more efficient support for and boosted investment in British industry, be it publicly or privately owned; extending the successful Labour policy on pensions; exploring reform to welfare and health care, such as direct channelling of National Insurance; supercharging resource production and investing the proceeds of the burgeoning North Sea oil and gas sector; and majorly increasing investment in space and high technology.
November 7: A disastrous malfunction of a naphtha cracker at the DSM oil refinery in Geleen threatens to set off a major explosion, but disaster is averted thanks to the intervention of an orange costumed flying figure, who hurtles into the plant to disable the leak and disperse the threatening petroleum vapour cloud with a superhuman exhalation of water vapour. The plant and surrounding areas of the town are quickly evacuated whilst further safety measures are put in place to remove the potential for any conflagration, whilst the costumed man disappears amid the tumult and hubbub.
November 8: The Italian Comando Supremo authorises a detailed paper on modernising reforms to the structure of the Regio Escercito, including the formation of a pair of new armoured divisions, the reactivation of the 3ª Armata and the fielding of new modern mechanised cavalry units. A proposal for the removal of the regimental level of organisation has been rejected, with it to be maintained in conjunction with the existing brigade structure, as well as in the new legione formations.
November 9: The crew Storozhevoy, a Krivak class guardship or frigate of the Red Navy, mutiny against their captain and the Soviet system, slipping out of Riga shortly after midnight and making for Gotland with the intent to claim asylum in the West. Operating without radar and with a brief headstart over the pursuing Baltic Fleet, Storozhevoy manages to make it tantalisingly close to the Swedish border before being hit with airstrikes from Yak-28s and seemingly left almost dead in the water. As pursuing Soviet destroyers fire warning shots over her bow in preparation for an attempt to land commandos by helicopter, their triumph is interrupted by flights of Royal Swedish Air Force Saab JA 37 Viggens and Saab J 42 Vikings making their presence felt, followed by Royal Swedish Navy Buccaneers taking up positions in adjacent Swedish airspace. The Soviet vessels are hailed by the incoming Royal Swedish Navy battleship Småland and informed that they are in Swedish territorial waters and airspace, with the resultant heated disputation over the radio allowing the stricken Storozhevoy to continue to drift ever closer to actual Swedish waters. The Soviet Baltic Fleet initially orders that the cruiser Sverdlov move up to resolve the situation, but a report by a Tu-126 Moss airborne radar plane that the Swedish battleship Tre Kronor and the aircraft carrier Ornen are inbound at flank speed results in the cancellation of the plan; the subsequent detection of an unknown submarine travelling at over 30 knots towards the scene of the standoff, indicating either one of the Swedish Aran class SSNs or even a British or American nuclear submarine leads to further perturbation in Kronstadt. As an order for a boarding of the rebel frigate by Soviet naval commandos using inflatable boats from Sverdlov is issued, the Swedes announce that the Storezhevoy was now possibly within Swedish waters, and that they have been ordered to hold their border, at all costs; long range coastal artillery and missile batteries on Gotland are ordered to prepare to give covering fire. This gives the Soviets further scope for pause, during which time the mutinous officer ringleaders are offered humanitarian assistance and taken off by RSwN frogmen to a waiting submarine, leaving the rest of the crew, the ship itself, and the captain and loyal officers still tied in the hold, to be nudged arcanely back into international waters for the Soviets to repossess. The incident leads to an immediate protest by the Soviet ambassador to Sweden, which is received coolly and correctly.
November 10: The Great Lakes freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald, loaded with 26,000 tons of iron ore from a mill in Wisconsin intended for a steelworks near Detroit, runs into a freakish November storm on Lake Superior and is severely pressed to avoid foundering before it can make the comparative safe waters of Whitefish Bay. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is averted by a seemingly inexplicable event, whereby amid the contrary winds and being tossed by the waves, a strange music is heard through the ship's wireless, exhorting the crew to 'Rise again, rise again', and a glowing light is seen off the port bow in the image of a man walking away from the near-stricken vessel, light of foot across the waves themselves. Captain McSorley turns his ship towards the figure in a moment of decision, and despite the odds, manages to somehow successfully ground the ship on the sands of the beach just east of Whitefish Point Lighthouse. Subsequent Coast Guard investigations conclude that it must have been the lighthouse's beacon through the storm, with the notion of some form of magnetic music and miraculous figures being dismissed after thorough cross-referencing with the Federal Department of Superhuman Affairs, who confirm that none of their rostered costumed members was active on the Great Lakes that night; the disparity between the thrice-minutely flash of the lighthouse and the continuing glow is dismissed as a stress reaction. SS Edmund Fitzgerald is later refloated with the aid of tugs, maritime sorcerers and Jalicharde Räelye, the venerable Great Wyrm of the Lakes, and towed into Sault Ste. Marie for proper repairs, with her cargo having been extracted by a specialist firm of giants.
November 11: KGB officers conduct the largest series of mass arrests since the 1950s in a coordinated operation in cities across the Russian SFSR in the early hours of the morning, with over 15,000 rounded up and sent to sorting camps in the Urals. No clear pattern to the dissidents or other criminals can be deduced from these targeted, sending a profound chilling effect through Soviet society.
November 12: The Australian Army carries out tests of new very long range strategic artillery pieces in the remote deserts of Northern Australia under the auspices of the extremely ambitious Commonwealth Strategic Long Range Gun programme, which, under the direction of Dr. Gerald Bull, aims to develop two variants of a mobile ultraheavy strategic artillery piece capable of ranges out to 1250 miles, utilising ballistic data from existing strategic weapons in the mountains of Wales and Scotland and the guns of Dover and Singapore. It is envisaged that a nominally mobile weapon could provide significant additional capacity in a number of theatres; critics of the programme point at the difficult of actually achieving significant mobility for any such piece, as well as the sheer mechanics of transporting sufficient ammunition when the shells in question are the height of a hill giant.
November 13: Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court William Douglas announces his intention to retire from the court, leaving President Reagan with his first vacancy to fill to join Chief Justice Nixon, Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Warren Burger, Thurgood Marshall and Herbert Brownell. The leading candidates are considered to be Edwin Meese, Solicitor-General Robert Bork, Archibald Cox and John Paul Stevens, with the selection having the potential to alter the balance of power on the Nixon Court, where the Chief Justice and Justices Burger and Rehnquist represent the conservative wing, Justices Brownell, Powell and Stewart sit around the centre (in that order) and Kennedy appointees Justices White and Marshall are firm liberals. Some observers consider that the selection of a moderate Republican such as Stevens would be the most in keeping with the traditional spirit of the court, which has been emphasised under Chief Justice Nixon.
November 14: ODESSA security officials are both horrified and baffled by the overnight deaths of 26 high ranking former Nazis living in hiding in Paraguay, Aranguay and Bolivia, with all having been apparently killed in their beds by an intruder or intruders unknown. Some seem to have been physically beaten or even torn apart, whilst others appear to have been exsanguinated. A strange sigil painted in blood of some sort of bestial smiling face causes immediate consternation and a rash of urgent telephone calls and telexes.
November 15: Royal assent is given to the Natural Environment and Wildlife (Protection) Act, providing for the protection of native plants and animal species across Britain, both within the realm's national parks and on private and public land. It provides for a number of schedules classifying the relative protection of different species, plants and trees, ranging from absolute protection to complete freedom to deal with as appropriate, within the scope of other laws on animal cruelty, land clearance and planning regulations, whilst not impinging upon traditional rights and freedoms.
November 16: President Reagan gives the opening address to the PATO Conference in Manila, highlighting the successful recovery of South Vietnam from the ravages of war, the value of collective security and a firm defence of freedom, and the indefatigable strength of the alliance bloc. Although it has perhaps lacked the same direct and identifiable threat as NATO, the Pacific Treaty Organisation is seen as a successful model for multilateral security arrangements moving into the second half of the 1970s and beyond, with joint exercises and deployments contributing to the stability and security of the wider region.
November 17: Opening of a special folk music festival held in conjunction with a national meeting the Society of Creative Anachronism with SCA at Great Brook Farm State Park in Massachusetts, which includes a temporarily erected 'castle' wrought of wood and sorcerously-reinforced cloth. Despite the increasingly cold temperatures of the season, over 40,000 people will attend over the three days of the festival, attracted by the mixture of music, culture, food, family-friendly frolics and fine frivolities.
November 18: South African and Portuguese officials begin discussions in Cape Town on the long term prospects of the seemingly intractable Portuguese Colonial Wars in Angola and Mozambique, which are naturally of vital importance to the South Africans, given their strategic position. The general view of the Portuguese is that there is slightly more scope for optimism in Mozambique, given that only her northern border with Azania presents any real scope for even a potential threat, whereas Angola's border with the Congo makes for an exceptionally broad challenge.
November 19: The Soviet Poliburo authorises the raising of a new Combined Arms Army and a Rifle Army for assignment to the Murmansk Military District in a move thought to be at least partially motivated by the recent Storozhevoy Incident. The deployment of further Soviet forces to the High North is bound to lead to some measure of response by NATO.
November 20: Decommissioning of USS Montana, the lead ship of the last remaining class of Second World War battleships in service with the United States Navy; her sister ships Kansas, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Louisiana and Georgia are the last such USN warships remaining on active duty, with the last wartime cruiser decommissioned in 1974, the final warbuilt Gearing class destroyer in 1972 and the last Essex class anti-submarine warfare aircraft carrier, USS Oriskany, being paid off in August. The Reagan Administration is currently considering the utility of proposals for conventionally powered supercarrier and submarine designs to augment its currently projected construction programme.
November 21: Audience enthusiasm for The Star Wars does not seem like substantially abating even some five months after the film’s release, with daily screenings at picture houses in America, Canada, England, Australia and Western Europe still attracting close to full houses, with both adults and children alike thrilling at the daring adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Moore Cawbelle. George Lucas's picture has reportedly grossed over $100 million in North American theatres alone since July, putting on track to potentially become one of the highest grossing films of all time, sitting as it does significantly behind the most recent box office 'blockbuster', The Return of the King, which is currently second behind Gone With the Wind and ahead of Ben Hur, The Sound of Music, The Ten Commandments.
November 22: Des Moines class guided missile cruiser USS Oregon City collides with the aircraft carrier Coral Sea off the coast of Malta, sheering off 40ft of the cruiser's bow and causing several spotfires which are extinguished by the automatic fire suppression runes emplaced upon her. Five sailors are killed and dozens are injured in the accident, which will lead to an extensive investigation and an eventual court martial of the cruiser's skipper, which results in his acquittal. After emergency repairs in Malta, Oregon City is subsequently judged as not having sufficient remaining service life to justify a full repair, and is decommissioned in April 1976.
November 23: An incident occurs at Hawkins National Laboratory in Hawkins, Indiana, with some scurrilous rumours - no doubt created out of thin air by drunks, communists or drunk communists - contending that a woman attempted to force her way into the high security location, whilst official accounts state simply that a number of personnel and soldiers were injured in an exercise. Whatever the cause, a US Army medical support team and quick reaction force is rushed from Fort Benjamin Harrison by Vertibird, and secures the secret joint Department of Energy and Department of Magic facility. A terse Army press statement announces that all personnel are expected to make a full recovery and that no strange things were going on.
November 24: Launch of the Japanese spaceship Akenomyōsei from the orbit of Minerva on a voyage of exploration to the asteroid belt and Jovian system. Commanded by Captain Akira Kobayashi and with a crew of 90, Akenomyōsei's mission is scheduled to last four years, and is hailed by Japanese newspapers and politicians alike as a sign of the waxing power of the reborn Empire of the Rising Sun.
November 25: Missing American former Secretary of Magic Harry Houdini appears at a press conference in New York City, announcing that, in concert with Miss Nancy Drew and noted private detective Sam Chandler, and in correspondence with Mr. Nero Wolfe, he has successfully apprehended the infamous international criminal Carmen Sandiego and her partner in crime, Waldo. The pair have been wanted for a variety of nefarious crimes, including the theft of the baton used to conduct the Vienna Boy’s Choir, the finest rug in the Presidential Palace of Caracas and the original steps to the tango.
November 26: A Home Office report states that just over 2400 migrants from the New Commonwealth have taken part in the voluntary repatriation programme over the last five months, signifying that the markedly increased financial incentives of £500 per person have proved more attractive than the standing provisions of Section 29 of the Immigration Act of 1970, which had seen an annual average of 670 persons take advantage of previous arrangements administered by the International Social Service of Great Britain in the intervening four years. The annualised level of the current trend, should it continue, would equate to approximately a third of the annual natural growth in this particular population group, indicating that the current programme, although nominally notable, does not seem to be ultimately efficacious in its particular aim.
November 27: The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium releases an upgraded version of their successful educational computer game The Oregon Trail, now featuring graphics, sound and extended gameplay options, all whilst fitting on a 5.25” floppy disk school microcomputers. Arrangements for a copy of the educational programme to be purchased for for each of the 125,948 elementary schools and the 62,435 high schools across the United States by the Wayne Foundation.
November 28: Maiden long range flight of the Fairey Delta III strategic fighter from Barton Aerodrome to RAF Akureyri in Iceland, with the 1632 mile jaunt taking 36 minutes on account of civilian air traffic over the Inner Seas. The Delta III is powered by two new Rolls Royce Severn Mk II turbofans and has a combat radius of 1350 nautical miles, a combat ceiling of over 80,000ft and a top speed of well over Mach 3.2.
November 29: New Zealand Prime Minister Jack Marshall is returned to power in the New Zealand general election with an increased majority of 54-42, despite Labour making inroads in newly established electorates around Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Marshall's pragmatic, calm, understated and gentlemanly style of leadership has struck a chord with the New Zealand public throughout his time in office, representing a steady hand on the tiller of the ship of state.
November 30: A group of American mercenary fighters contracted to suppress a rebel group in inland Urungu, which had been opposing construction of a new dam, and with the local army garrison ostensibly unable to act on account of the press, discovers that their employers were in the wrong on the issue. The local governor had been seeking to exterminate innocent villagers in order to profit unjustly from their land, leading the outraged mercenaries to break their contract, turn on the villain and wipe out his forces in defence of the villagers; they subsequently lodge extensive evidence with the Mercenaries Guild of the United States to avoid being blackballed for their violent volte-face.
November 1: Kaiser Wilhelm V signs an act which authorises the Kriegsministrie to raise four further regular divisions of the Imperial German Army, bringing it to a strength of 40. Additionally, the establishment of a number of intermediate formations, provisionally designated as kampfgruppe, is authorised by separate provisions, allowing for coordination and deployment of further field forces without exceeding peacetime levels agreed upon at Stockholm in 1961. The Reserveheer, Landwehr and Heimwehr are to remain at their currently appointed levels, whilst the Ersatzheer is to continue to not organise units above regimental strength.
November 2: A 22 year old student attempts to throw a fire bomb through the window of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton sees his would-be arson attack rebound upon himself through the arcane defences of the now-standard repulsion spells placed on royal residences and special government properties across Britain; a mistake in the casting ritual had resulted in such protection being applied to past as well as present royal palaces. A quick thinking constable hurls the unfortunate fellow into the reflecting pool, putting him out before placing him under arrest for the attempted blaze, which does not seem to have any immediate political motives. Despite some initial consideration of charging the man under the Treachery Act, he is tried for attempted arson and sentenced to 20 years hard labour.
November 3: Formation of Telecom and Australia Post as separate telecommunications and postal Commonwealth corporations under the auspices and control of the Postmaster General’s Department in Australia. The move comes as the first phase of the Hawke Government’s modernisation of Australia’s communications networks.
November 4: Young logger, Travis Walton, 22, disappears from a worksite in the Turkey Springs area of the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest in the vicinity of Snowflake, Arizona, apparently without a trace, after climbing out of a truck to investigate a strange light hovering above the ground. After initially fleeing in fear, his workmates report the incident to the local sheriff, and a large scale search begins over the next four days. On the fifth day, Walton places a collect call to his sister from a phonebox in Heber, outside the Hotel California. Subsequent medical tests indicate the presence of some form of intravenous injections, but no sign of known medicines or chemicals in his bloodstream, whilst an FBI wizard detects unknown strands in his aura, leading to the investigative team concluding that this was simply a case of spontaneous atmospheric drunkeness caused by the accidental release of lifting gases from a fallen weather balloon.
November 5: Italian food, beverage and consumer goods conglomerate Bertorelli S.p.A. purchases the Pizza Hut fast food restaurant chain from the Carney brothers for $200 million, as part of patriarch Maresciallo d'Italia Alberto Bertorelli’s ongoing quest to obtain a controlling interest in the global pizza market. This successful drive, which has seen the acquisition of a number of restaurant chains and food production groups, has been motivated by Bertorelli’s dismay upon sampling an American pizza whilst in Washington for a NATO conference a decade ago.
November 6: A policy meeting at the Conservative and Unionist Central Office at Smith Square, chaired by Party Chairman and Shadow Home Secretary William Whitelaw and consisting of Leader of the Opposition and Conservative Party Leader Sir Enoch Powell, the 28 members of his Shadow Cabinet and Opposition Chief Whip Sir Francis Urquhart, fixes upon the Party’s strategy for next year’s general election, consisting of a move to outmatch Labour on defence and national security; to formulate and advocate a distinct economic policy based around reduction in personal and corporate taxation, simplification of individual tax brackets and investment in key infrastructure; providing more efficient support for and boosted investment in British industry, be it publicly or privately owned; extending the successful Labour policy on pensions; exploring reform to welfare and health care, such as direct channelling of National Insurance; supercharging resource production and investing the proceeds of the burgeoning North Sea oil and gas sector; and majorly increasing investment in space and high technology.
November 7: A disastrous malfunction of a naphtha cracker at the DSM oil refinery in Geleen threatens to set off a major explosion, but disaster is averted thanks to the intervention of an orange costumed flying figure, who hurtles into the plant to disable the leak and disperse the threatening petroleum vapour cloud with a superhuman exhalation of water vapour. The plant and surrounding areas of the town are quickly evacuated whilst further safety measures are put in place to remove the potential for any conflagration, whilst the costumed man disappears amid the tumult and hubbub.
November 8: The Italian Comando Supremo authorises a detailed paper on modernising reforms to the structure of the Regio Escercito, including the formation of a pair of new armoured divisions, the reactivation of the 3ª Armata and the fielding of new modern mechanised cavalry units. A proposal for the removal of the regimental level of organisation has been rejected, with it to be maintained in conjunction with the existing brigade structure, as well as in the new legione formations.
November 9: The crew Storozhevoy, a Krivak class guardship or frigate of the Red Navy, mutiny against their captain and the Soviet system, slipping out of Riga shortly after midnight and making for Gotland with the intent to claim asylum in the West. Operating without radar and with a brief headstart over the pursuing Baltic Fleet, Storozhevoy manages to make it tantalisingly close to the Swedish border before being hit with airstrikes from Yak-28s and seemingly left almost dead in the water. As pursuing Soviet destroyers fire warning shots over her bow in preparation for an attempt to land commandos by helicopter, their triumph is interrupted by flights of Royal Swedish Air Force Saab JA 37 Viggens and Saab J 42 Vikings making their presence felt, followed by Royal Swedish Navy Buccaneers taking up positions in adjacent Swedish airspace. The Soviet vessels are hailed by the incoming Royal Swedish Navy battleship Småland and informed that they are in Swedish territorial waters and airspace, with the resultant heated disputation over the radio allowing the stricken Storozhevoy to continue to drift ever closer to actual Swedish waters. The Soviet Baltic Fleet initially orders that the cruiser Sverdlov move up to resolve the situation, but a report by a Tu-126 Moss airborne radar plane that the Swedish battleship Tre Kronor and the aircraft carrier Ornen are inbound at flank speed results in the cancellation of the plan; the subsequent detection of an unknown submarine travelling at over 30 knots towards the scene of the standoff, indicating either one of the Swedish Aran class SSNs or even a British or American nuclear submarine leads to further perturbation in Kronstadt. As an order for a boarding of the rebel frigate by Soviet naval commandos using inflatable boats from Sverdlov is issued, the Swedes announce that the Storezhevoy was now possibly within Swedish waters, and that they have been ordered to hold their border, at all costs; long range coastal artillery and missile batteries on Gotland are ordered to prepare to give covering fire. This gives the Soviets further scope for pause, during which time the mutinous officer ringleaders are offered humanitarian assistance and taken off by RSwN frogmen to a waiting submarine, leaving the rest of the crew, the ship itself, and the captain and loyal officers still tied in the hold, to be nudged arcanely back into international waters for the Soviets to repossess. The incident leads to an immediate protest by the Soviet ambassador to Sweden, which is received coolly and correctly.
November 10: The Great Lakes freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald, loaded with 26,000 tons of iron ore from a mill in Wisconsin intended for a steelworks near Detroit, runs into a freakish November storm on Lake Superior and is severely pressed to avoid foundering before it can make the comparative safe waters of Whitefish Bay. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is averted by a seemingly inexplicable event, whereby amid the contrary winds and being tossed by the waves, a strange music is heard through the ship's wireless, exhorting the crew to 'Rise again, rise again', and a glowing light is seen off the port bow in the image of a man walking away from the near-stricken vessel, light of foot across the waves themselves. Captain McSorley turns his ship towards the figure in a moment of decision, and despite the odds, manages to somehow successfully ground the ship on the sands of the beach just east of Whitefish Point Lighthouse. Subsequent Coast Guard investigations conclude that it must have been the lighthouse's beacon through the storm, with the notion of some form of magnetic music and miraculous figures being dismissed after thorough cross-referencing with the Federal Department of Superhuman Affairs, who confirm that none of their rostered costumed members was active on the Great Lakes that night; the disparity between the thrice-minutely flash of the lighthouse and the continuing glow is dismissed as a stress reaction. SS Edmund Fitzgerald is later refloated with the aid of tugs, maritime sorcerers and Jalicharde Räelye, the venerable Great Wyrm of the Lakes, and towed into Sault Ste. Marie for proper repairs, with her cargo having been extracted by a specialist firm of giants.
November 11: KGB officers conduct the largest series of mass arrests since the 1950s in a coordinated operation in cities across the Russian SFSR in the early hours of the morning, with over 15,000 rounded up and sent to sorting camps in the Urals. No clear pattern to the dissidents or other criminals can be deduced from these targeted, sending a profound chilling effect through Soviet society.
November 12: The Australian Army carries out tests of new very long range strategic artillery pieces in the remote deserts of Northern Australia under the auspices of the extremely ambitious Commonwealth Strategic Long Range Gun programme, which, under the direction of Dr. Gerald Bull, aims to develop two variants of a mobile ultraheavy strategic artillery piece capable of ranges out to 1250 miles, utilising ballistic data from existing strategic weapons in the mountains of Wales and Scotland and the guns of Dover and Singapore. It is envisaged that a nominally mobile weapon could provide significant additional capacity in a number of theatres; critics of the programme point at the difficult of actually achieving significant mobility for any such piece, as well as the sheer mechanics of transporting sufficient ammunition when the shells in question are the height of a hill giant.
November 13: Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court William Douglas announces his intention to retire from the court, leaving President Reagan with his first vacancy to fill to join Chief Justice Nixon, Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Warren Burger, Thurgood Marshall and Herbert Brownell. The leading candidates are considered to be Edwin Meese, Solicitor-General Robert Bork, Archibald Cox and John Paul Stevens, with the selection having the potential to alter the balance of power on the Nixon Court, where the Chief Justice and Justices Burger and Rehnquist represent the conservative wing, Justices Brownell, Powell and Stewart sit around the centre (in that order) and Kennedy appointees Justices White and Marshall are firm liberals. Some observers consider that the selection of a moderate Republican such as Stevens would be the most in keeping with the traditional spirit of the court, which has been emphasised under Chief Justice Nixon.
November 14: ODESSA security officials are both horrified and baffled by the overnight deaths of 26 high ranking former Nazis living in hiding in Paraguay, Aranguay and Bolivia, with all having been apparently killed in their beds by an intruder or intruders unknown. Some seem to have been physically beaten or even torn apart, whilst others appear to have been exsanguinated. A strange sigil painted in blood of some sort of bestial smiling face causes immediate consternation and a rash of urgent telephone calls and telexes.
November 15: Royal assent is given to the Natural Environment and Wildlife (Protection) Act, providing for the protection of native plants and animal species across Britain, both within the realm's national parks and on private and public land. It provides for a number of schedules classifying the relative protection of different species, plants and trees, ranging from absolute protection to complete freedom to deal with as appropriate, within the scope of other laws on animal cruelty, land clearance and planning regulations, whilst not impinging upon traditional rights and freedoms.
November 16: President Reagan gives the opening address to the PATO Conference in Manila, highlighting the successful recovery of South Vietnam from the ravages of war, the value of collective security and a firm defence of freedom, and the indefatigable strength of the alliance bloc. Although it has perhaps lacked the same direct and identifiable threat as NATO, the Pacific Treaty Organisation is seen as a successful model for multilateral security arrangements moving into the second half of the 1970s and beyond, with joint exercises and deployments contributing to the stability and security of the wider region.
November 17: Opening of a special folk music festival held in conjunction with a national meeting the Society of Creative Anachronism with SCA at Great Brook Farm State Park in Massachusetts, which includes a temporarily erected 'castle' wrought of wood and sorcerously-reinforced cloth. Despite the increasingly cold temperatures of the season, over 40,000 people will attend over the three days of the festival, attracted by the mixture of music, culture, food, family-friendly frolics and fine frivolities.
November 18: South African and Portuguese officials begin discussions in Cape Town on the long term prospects of the seemingly intractable Portuguese Colonial Wars in Angola and Mozambique, which are naturally of vital importance to the South Africans, given their strategic position. The general view of the Portuguese is that there is slightly more scope for optimism in Mozambique, given that only her northern border with Azania presents any real scope for even a potential threat, whereas Angola's border with the Congo makes for an exceptionally broad challenge.
November 19: The Soviet Poliburo authorises the raising of a new Combined Arms Army and a Rifle Army for assignment to the Murmansk Military District in a move thought to be at least partially motivated by the recent Storozhevoy Incident. The deployment of further Soviet forces to the High North is bound to lead to some measure of response by NATO.
November 20: Decommissioning of USS Montana, the lead ship of the last remaining class of Second World War battleships in service with the United States Navy; her sister ships Kansas, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Louisiana and Georgia are the last such USN warships remaining on active duty, with the last wartime cruiser decommissioned in 1974, the final warbuilt Gearing class destroyer in 1972 and the last Essex class anti-submarine warfare aircraft carrier, USS Oriskany, being paid off in August. The Reagan Administration is currently considering the utility of proposals for conventionally powered supercarrier and submarine designs to augment its currently projected construction programme.
November 21: Audience enthusiasm for The Star Wars does not seem like substantially abating even some five months after the film’s release, with daily screenings at picture houses in America, Canada, England, Australia and Western Europe still attracting close to full houses, with both adults and children alike thrilling at the daring adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Moore Cawbelle. George Lucas's picture has reportedly grossed over $100 million in North American theatres alone since July, putting on track to potentially become one of the highest grossing films of all time, sitting as it does significantly behind the most recent box office 'blockbuster', The Return of the King, which is currently second behind Gone With the Wind and ahead of Ben Hur, The Sound of Music, The Ten Commandments.
November 22: Des Moines class guided missile cruiser USS Oregon City collides with the aircraft carrier Coral Sea off the coast of Malta, sheering off 40ft of the cruiser's bow and causing several spotfires which are extinguished by the automatic fire suppression runes emplaced upon her. Five sailors are killed and dozens are injured in the accident, which will lead to an extensive investigation and an eventual court martial of the cruiser's skipper, which results in his acquittal. After emergency repairs in Malta, Oregon City is subsequently judged as not having sufficient remaining service life to justify a full repair, and is decommissioned in April 1976.
November 23: An incident occurs at Hawkins National Laboratory in Hawkins, Indiana, with some scurrilous rumours - no doubt created out of thin air by drunks, communists or drunk communists - contending that a woman attempted to force her way into the high security location, whilst official accounts state simply that a number of personnel and soldiers were injured in an exercise. Whatever the cause, a US Army medical support team and quick reaction force is rushed from Fort Benjamin Harrison by Vertibird, and secures the secret joint Department of Energy and Department of Magic facility. A terse Army press statement announces that all personnel are expected to make a full recovery and that no strange things were going on.
November 24: Launch of the Japanese spaceship Akenomyōsei from the orbit of Minerva on a voyage of exploration to the asteroid belt and Jovian system. Commanded by Captain Akira Kobayashi and with a crew of 90, Akenomyōsei's mission is scheduled to last four years, and is hailed by Japanese newspapers and politicians alike as a sign of the waxing power of the reborn Empire of the Rising Sun.
November 25: Missing American former Secretary of Magic Harry Houdini appears at a press conference in New York City, announcing that, in concert with Miss Nancy Drew and noted private detective Sam Chandler, and in correspondence with Mr. Nero Wolfe, he has successfully apprehended the infamous international criminal Carmen Sandiego and her partner in crime, Waldo. The pair have been wanted for a variety of nefarious crimes, including the theft of the baton used to conduct the Vienna Boy’s Choir, the finest rug in the Presidential Palace of Caracas and the original steps to the tango.
November 26: A Home Office report states that just over 2400 migrants from the New Commonwealth have taken part in the voluntary repatriation programme over the last five months, signifying that the markedly increased financial incentives of £500 per person have proved more attractive than the standing provisions of Section 29 of the Immigration Act of 1970, which had seen an annual average of 670 persons take advantage of previous arrangements administered by the International Social Service of Great Britain in the intervening four years. The annualised level of the current trend, should it continue, would equate to approximately a third of the annual natural growth in this particular population group, indicating that the current programme, although nominally notable, does not seem to be ultimately efficacious in its particular aim.
November 27: The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium releases an upgraded version of their successful educational computer game The Oregon Trail, now featuring graphics, sound and extended gameplay options, all whilst fitting on a 5.25” floppy disk school microcomputers. Arrangements for a copy of the educational programme to be purchased for for each of the 125,948 elementary schools and the 62,435 high schools across the United States by the Wayne Foundation.
November 28: Maiden long range flight of the Fairey Delta III strategic fighter from Barton Aerodrome to RAF Akureyri in Iceland, with the 1632 mile jaunt taking 36 minutes on account of civilian air traffic over the Inner Seas. The Delta III is powered by two new Rolls Royce Severn Mk II turbofans and has a combat radius of 1350 nautical miles, a combat ceiling of over 80,000ft and a top speed of well over Mach 3.2.
November 29: New Zealand Prime Minister Jack Marshall is returned to power in the New Zealand general election with an increased majority of 54-42, despite Labour making inroads in newly established electorates around Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Marshall's pragmatic, calm, understated and gentlemanly style of leadership has struck a chord with the New Zealand public throughout his time in office, representing a steady hand on the tiller of the ship of state.
November 30: A group of American mercenary fighters contracted to suppress a rebel group in inland Urungu, which had been opposing construction of a new dam, and with the local army garrison ostensibly unable to act on account of the press, discovers that their employers were in the wrong on the issue. The local governor had been seeking to exterminate innocent villagers in order to profit unjustly from their land, leading the outraged mercenaries to break their contract, turn on the villain and wipe out his forces in defence of the villagers; they subsequently lodge extensive evidence with the Mercenaries Guild of the United States to avoid being blackballed for their violent volte-face.
