The Titanic - In 1912 the English cruise liner Titanic sank to the bottom the north Atlantic, taking some two-thirds of its passengers to their deaths. The tragedy, the largest cruise liner disaster of its time, was long attributed to an iceburg both by those on the ship and those on board rescue vessels. The ship lay undiscovered for over seventy years until Dr. Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute led an expedition which successfully located the sunken legend. Subsequent missions to the Titanic thoroughly examined the shattered hull; armed with new evidence came to a startling conclusion: the Titannic had been torpedoed. By 1912 the Germans had perfected the U-boat and had built several prototypes for testing. The German government, with its distrust of England, set to prove the English wrong when they proclaimed the ship "unsinkable." The U-boat slipped quietly into the North Atlantic and came upon the luxury liner. In a stroke of good fortune, the ship happened to pass next to an iceburg; the Germans, realizing that the iceberg would mask their actions, torpedoed the starboard side of the hull. The resulting hull damage sank the Titanic and many of its passengers. Afterwords, the German U-boat slipped quietly back to port and into the shadows of history.

Piet Mondrian - The Twentieth Century saw changes which would forever alter perceptions of the world around us. In the Netherlands, Piet Mondrian and Theo Van Doseburg, associated with the De Styll movement in painting, were busy formulating a style of art intended for use by the masses. At first glance De Styll appeared to be an artistic movement centered around the creation of art generated for all peoples and the acceptance of this art by the masses, many of whom remained skeptical of modern styles. Behind this seemingly benign concept of painting, however, the artists were actually painting hidden messages meant to influence the minds of their viewers. Of the painters, Mondrian proved the most subversive and dangerous. He carefully balanced the lines and blocks of colors to produce art which he felt represented the basic and universal elements of the visual world. In doing so, he created small visual inconsistancies which would playwith the viewer's sence of perception. At the intersection of the black lines, grey dots would appear to the viewer; the lines, juxtaposed against white ground and blocks of primary color, would appear to advance and receed in space. In addition, the viewer would notice that several of the lines stop just shy of the edge of the canvas.

It was in these areas of his art that Mondrian placed his hidden messages, instructing the viewer toward a sense of peace and harmony. In this way Mondrian, an ardent believer in the basic commonality of all people, would over time program the viewer to accept messages of a new world order, one which would promote a peaceful, classless society based on images of harmony and inner contentment. As he grew older, Mondrian increased the complexity of his works while clinging to the ideas he so cherished. Although his new order remains unrealized, viewers of Mondrian claim the works possess a strange calming effect. The messages remain in museums worldwide to this day.

Trailer Parks - On October 29, 1929 the worst stock market crash in the nations history occurred in the United States. Suddenly the nation plunged from a growing economic power into a deep and long-lasting crisis of monetary shortage and unemployment; banks nationwide closed, citizens lost their jobs, houses, or farms, and public confidence slipped to new lows. Although Herbert Hoover predicted that the situation would improve, things only got worse. In 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Hoover for the presidency and embarked on the huge social reform intended to revitalize the nation. His New Deal involved everything from increased public works spending to instituting social welfare to repealing prohibition. The New Deal slowly improved the nation's economy, and Roosevelt won re-election in 1936, 1940 and 1944, although much of the eventual recovery of the United States came as the result of involvement in World War II. The New Deal laid the groundwork for the continued growth and prosperity of the United States for the next fifty years, but this expansive solution had its darker side. Roosevelt and his advisors knew that the nation embodied too many citizens, but realized that a Stalin-esque mass execution by the military could never solve the population crisis in the United States. As an alternative, they hit upon a plan to remove large segments of the population without sacrificing their political careers. Roosevelt secretly contacted leading aircraft and automotive manufacturors and instructed them to set up new divisions which would specialize in the construction of "trailer homes." These trailer homes would offer lower class citizens the opportunity to live in relative comfort in communities. In addition, land in the midwestern states was bought and converted into "trailer parks" for the multitudes of people who would come to inhabit them. The sinister side of this plan involved the location of the trailer parks in the Midwest; because of the geography of the midwestern United States, more tornados occur in that region than in the rest of the world combined. Thus it was thought that the multitudes of tornados would strike trailer parks, eliminating whole families in "natural disasters" for which no one would be liable. This sinister plan only met with limited success, as post-war economic growth led to the growth of the suburbs and economical housing for most segments of the population. But every year hundreds are injured when tornados tear paths of destruction through trailer parks, just as F.D.R. intended.

Roswell, New Mexico - This much publicized conspiracy actually occurred, though in a radically different form than that commonly portrayed. The plot centered around a faked 'alien crash' and 'government coverup' following the fortuitious downing of a U.S. Air Force weather balloon. Area residents hoped that their concoction would increase tourism and commerce in their otherwise non-descript Southwestern town.

English Cars - By the twentieth century most English had accepted the United States as an independent nation and a powerful ally, but a small number had never accepted the notion of colonial independence. Ever since the War of 1812, these conspirators had devised scheme after scheme to return the colonies to English control. After the Second World War, in which the United States had sent men, machinery and money to help the Allied cause, these thinkers devised a plan geared toward the collapse of the American infrastructure. Siezing on the American "boom years" of the late 1940s through the 1960s, the conspirators reached agreements with several British automakers seeking to expand their markets into the United States. Soon after, brands such as MG, Triumph, Austin-Healey and Jaguar began to sell cars exquisite in beauty and charm but nightmarishly finicky and unreliable to operate. The conspirators believed that the American roads, so crucial to the commerce of the large nation, would grind to a halt as multitudes of English cars suddenly broke and were left littering the countryside. The ensuing economic collapse would weaken the nation such that an army of English soldiers could sieze Wahington and take over the nation. Unfortunately, the English never sold cars in the numbers required to make this plan work, although many owners nevertheless experienced the frustration of an automobile which spends more time in the shop than on the road.
**See Also Brooklands Auto Page: Brooklands**

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