Reichstag fire

The Reichstag (home of the legislature), in ashes after arson for which Marinus van der Lubbe took credit, became a rallying point on which the Nazis gained power.

It seems clear that the arsonist had help, probably from the Nazis themselves. In short, they burned the Reichstag and then said "Something must be done about all this anarchy! The Reichstag has been burned!".

Acts of terrorism, most recently the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, have sometimes been compared to the Reichstag fire. The implication is that the acts were committed to create a harsh reaction -- martial law, retaliatory war against usual suspects, and so on. Fortunately, these comparisons have generally been based more on fear than on evidence.

SOURCE: http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/hist/fire.html

February 28, 1933
President Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler invoke Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, thus declaring a national emergency and abrogating all civil liberties. Their Red Scare precedes ours by over a decade.

February 27, 1933
Marinus is a member of the Communist party who confesses and is later tried and executed for burning down the German Parliament (Reichstag) building on this particular day.

September 11, 2001
Air Traffic Controllers in the New England area somehow fail to notice and or take action with regard to the deviation of four aeroplanes from their scheduled flight paths. Folks over at Andrews Air Force Base take a collective smoke break that lasts the duration of the time in which they could spend any of the hundreds of billions of dollars slotted for defense to get their fancy aeroplanes up in the air and go about seeing what that blip on the radar flying towards the Pentagon is up to.

Shortly thereafter
Congress votes almost unanimously in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act in spite of the fact that no one had time to read it in its entirety.

November 14, 2001
Bush signs the PATRIOT Act into law.

October 20, 1942
The US government orders the seizure of banking operations in New York City being conducted by Prescott Bush.

Today, and every other day
History continues to run in circles when those holding the steering wheel are too lazy or scared to bother changing directions

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