1605 – Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is arrested. Gunpowder Plot; attempt to blow up King James I while he opened Parliament. Plot discovered and Guy Fawkes caught and tortured. By November the 8th, on the rack, Fawkes names 12 co-conspirators. Those not killed where they are tracked down are found guilty of treason later in a trial lasting less than a day. They and Fawkes are hanged, drawn and quartered.
Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
-Old English folk rhyme (anonymous)
Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and how false flag operations have shaped history
Fawkes was not apprehended in a basement room but rather a ground floor room, one remarkably easily rented by the plotters. There was, accordingly, no tunnel. The authorship of the letter by which the King learned of the plot is murky. It was turned over to the King by the Royal Chancellor, Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury.
Sir Cecil I would characterize as the Dick Cheney of his day. Because plots were common at that time Cecil had an efficient network of spies seeded among Roman Catholic dissidents. He kept tabs on all plots the spies discovered. This one featured a large cast of characters from several cities.
Cecil kept the King in the dark about the plot except for the obscure letter. The gunpowder, it turned out, was of an inferior nature, unlikely to have achieved much result. This was odd, as Fawkes definitely knew a thing or two about gunpowder. He had developed expertise with it while serving with distinction in Spain’s army against Protestant rebels in the Netherlands. It’s conceivable the gunpowder could have been switched by someone; loads of it existed because of all the hostilities. Some handwriting on Fawkes’s confession differed from the rest.
“When we examine into the details supplied to us as to the progress of the affair, we find that much of what the conspirators are said to have done is well-nigh incredible, while it is utterly impossible that if they really acted in the manner described, the public authorities should not have had full knowledge…”
Exactly. The evidence points to a particular kind of false-flag operation. There are many variations. In some (9/11 being the leading example) an outrageous event is carried out by the perpetrators and blamed on the chosen enemy. In others (example, Gulf of Tonkin) nothing happens but a fiction blames the chosen enemy. The Gunpowder Plot is midway: a plot was underway but the precise intentions of the plotters can never be known. The main feature is that, with or without taking a hand in the plot, the Cecil elements manipulated events brilliantly.
Cecil was heavily involved in an influential London group known as “the war party.” It wanted to push James into a confrontation with the Spanish Empire, from which the group’s members hoped, among other things, to extract great personal profit.
The war party considered it politically vital to keep persecuting Roman Catholics. Sir Cecil set out, to sway James to adopt his policy by means of terrorism.
It amounts to this: Either Cecil and the war party made the Gunpowder Plot happen or they let it happen –and made sure of a brilliantly timed “exposé.” And if they let it happen they made it happen.
1768 – Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the purpose of which is to adjust the boundary line between Indian lands and white settlements set forth in the Proclamation of 1763 in the Thirteen Colonies.
1773 – John Hancock is elected as moderator at a Boston town meeting that resolves that anyone who supports the Tea Act is an “Enemy to America”
1780 – French-American forces under Colonel LaBalme are defeated by Miami Chief Little Turtle.
1781 – John Hanson elected first “President of US in Congress assembled”
1831 – Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia.
1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army for the second and final time.
1862 – American Indian Wars: In Minnesota, 303 Dakota warriors are found guilty of rape and murder of whites and are sentenced to hang. 38 are ultimately executed and the others reprieved.
1872 – Women’s suffrage in the United States: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.
1895 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
1911 – After declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on September 29, 1911, Italy annexes Tripoli and Cyrenaica.
1912 – Woodrow Wilson (D) defeats Theodore Roosevelt (Prog) & President Taft (R)
1914 – World War I: France and the British Empire declare war on the Ottoman Empire.
1916 – The Everett Massacre takes place in Everett, Washington as political differences lead to a shoot-out between the Industrial Workers of the World organizers and local police.
1925 – Secret agent Sidney Reilly, the first “super-spy” of the 20th century, is executed by the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union.
1931 – Ike Turner, American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer (Kings of Rhythm and Ike & Tina Turner) (d. 2007) was born.
1937 – Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring “living space” for the German people.
1940 – Pres FDR (D) wins unprecedented 3rd term beating Wendell Willkie (R)
1941 – Art Garfunkel, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (Simon & Garfunkel) was born.
1943 – Sam Shepard, Ill, actor/playwright (Frances, Crimes of the Heart)Born
1943 – Vatican bombed
1946 – Gram Parsons, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and International Submarine Band) (d. 1973) was born.
1948 – Bob Barr, American lawyer and politician was birthed.
1952 – Bill Walton, La Mesa California, NBA center (Portland Trailblazers, Boston Celtics)Born
1956 – Britain & France land forces in Egypt in reaction to seizure of Suez Canal
1956 – Art Tatum, black pianist, dies at 46 in Los Angeles
1960 – Johnny Horton, country singer, dies at 33
1967 – The Hither Green rail crash in the United Kingdom kills 49 people. Survivors include Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees.
1970 – Vietnam War: The United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24).
1971 – Jonny Greenwood, English guitarist and songwriter (Radiohead) was born.
1979 – Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declares US “The Great Satan”
1987 – Govan Mbeki is released from custody after serving 24 years of a life sentence for terrorism and treason.
1990 – Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel.
1994 – George Foreman (45) KOs Michael Moorer to win boxing HW championship
1995 – André Dallaire attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada. He is thwarted when the Prime Minister’s wife locks the door.
2003 – (Alleged)Green River Killer Gary Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of murder.
2003 – Bobby Hatfield, American singer-songwriter (Righteous Brothers) (b. 1940) died.
2006 – Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar are sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for the role in the massacre of the 148 Shi’a Muslims in 1982.
2007 – China’s first lunar satellite, Chang’e 1 goes into orbit around the Moon.
2007 – Android mobile operating system is unveiled by Google.
2009 – U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan murders 13 and wounds 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. military installation.
2010 – Jill Clayburgh, American actress (b. 1944) Dies
2013 – India launches the Mars Orbiter Mission, its first interplanetary probe.