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Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard's own SON is helping police investigate his alleged sex crimes By Guy Adams Investigates For The Daily Mail
15 Jan 2021
Link to article
'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.'
Kai Bickle's world came tumbling down one night in May 2019, when he attended a dinner party at a lavishly decorated mansion overlooking the golden sands of Venice Beach in Los Angeles.
The host was his father, Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion tycoon famed for the hedonistic lifestyle he pursued at a global portfolio of high-end properties, including vast residences in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, as well as New York, and, most notoriously, a Mayan-themed 'private luxury resort' in the Bahamas.
Modelling himself on Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, the flamboyant Nygard, now 79, kept a revolving harem of girlfriends. Those caught up (often completely unwittingly) in this web had included actresses Susan Anton and Jennifer O'Neill, stripper-turned-reality star Anna Nicole Smith, and a former Wheel Of Fortune card turner by the name of Vanna White.
His Caribbean parties, meanwhile, tended to attract a better class of A-lister. Past visitors to the island property had ranged from Jane Seymour and Bo Derek to Robert De Niro, , Michael Jackson and Joan Collins, not to mention and , who were photographed there in the early 2000s on an innocuous family holiday.
The 2019 bash, during one of Peter's occasional business trips to LA, was to be a more down-to-earth affair. Roughly 20 guests, including Kai, 38, and his younger brother Jessar (one of roughly ten offspring Nygard has fathered via more than seven women) had been invited for food and drinks, followed by a late-night poker game.
That was the plan, at least. But Kai never made it to the card- table. Instead, he fled the lavish premises in a state of distress, shortly after dinner, believing that he had just witnessed his father attempting to sexually assault an eight-year-old girl.
Details of this ugly development are (it should be stressed) strongly disputed, and we shall examine them later. But the incident would kick-start an extraordinary chain of events that culminated just before Christmas, with the arrest of Peter Nygard on nine charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Currently behind bars, with his $900 million (£660 million) business empire in tatters and the FBI poring over his computer hard-drives, the fallen tycoon has now been accused of rape or sexual assault by at least 57 women. Several of Nygard's accusers were children when the alleged crimes took place, and many claim they were drugged.
At least 57 women have accused him.
He will appear in court in Canada next week, seeking bail as he fights extradition to the USA.
It is, perhaps, the most high-profile and shocking sex case since handcuffs were slapped on Jeffrey Epstein. And in a remarkable twist, it turns out that a leading figure in the increasingly public campaign to prosecute Mr Nygard is his aforementioned son, Kai.
Upcoming documentary: ‘Unseamly’ Canadian Designer Peter Nygård True Crime Documentary
Behind the scenes, I can reveal that Kai has spent the past 18 months secretly helping both the U.S. and Canadian authorities investigate his own father's alleged crimes. Keeping his role hidden from Nygard and his associates for several months, he has worked tirelessly to assist victims, and their legal teams.
On the personal front, he has changed his name (taking up his mother's surname to become Kai Zen Bickle) and used his influence over various Nygard companies to block efforts to move his assets offshore, fearing that would allow him to flee. 'We have been engaged in a brutal battle against my father and his enablers,' is how Kai summed things up when we spoke this week.
'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.'
Perhaps most remarkably of all, Kai recently helped two of his younger siblings, one of whom remains a minor, to sue Peter Nygard over claims he 'engineered' the rape of his own sons. In an extraordinary lawsuit filed in August, the boys claimed that their leathery, multi-millionaire father instructed one of his long-standing girlfriends (who was also a sex worker) to 'make a man' out of them.
The first of these alleged attacks (which, again, are vehemently denied by Nygard) took place in the Bahamas 2004, when the son was 15 and the woman was in her mid-20s. The second occurred in Winnipeg in 2018, when the younger child was 14 and the woman was in her 40s. Court papers filed by the boys stated that the unnamed girlfriend was instructed to seduce Nygard's son by showering in his bathroom so that he 'could see her naked'. Then she raped him.
Afterwards, she allegedly told the boy he 'wasn't bad' for a 'baby.' The next morning, Nygard's girlfriend brought him breakfast in bed, kissing him on the lips and announcing: 'Mommy's got you.' Kai says he first became aware of this appalling incident last spring, and was 'sickened' to hear his brothers' claims.
He would often yell and scream at his staff.
'We all spoke and decided the best course of action was to file a lawsuit publicly in the hope that other survivors would feel safe to come forward and also file criminally against Nygard,' he says. 'We were originally going to have me in the suit as my young brother's guardian, but in the end decided not to because it would reveal to Nygard that I was working against him . . . At the time I was [secretly] doing everything I could to improve the odds that he would get arrested.'
To appreciate the extraordinary journey taken by Kai, we must wind the clock back to the mid-1980s, when his father was one of Canada's most talked-about self-made millionaires.
The son of penniless immigrants from Finland, Peter Nygard had launched his empire in the late 1960s, with an $8,000 (£6,000) investment in a struggling fashion firm. By the time he was 30, the company had become one of North America's most successful suppliers of leisure and sportswear, while his flamboyant eccentricities, which included keeping parrots in his office and filling the lobby of Nygard HQ with bronze busts of himself, turned him into an object of public fascination.
In 1987, the party-loving entrepreneur purchased a 4.5-acre patch of the island of New Providence in the Bahamas and set about turning it into a 'dream home' where he could indulge his champagne lifestyle. Over the ensuing years, he built 150,000 sq ft of Mayan-themed buildings, stretching over a dozen 'cabana-style' residences. The buildings at Nygard Cay eventually included a casino, a disco hut (with cameras beneath the dance floor, reportedly to shoot images of revellers from below), and the world's largest sauna, a 6,000 sq ft lodge made from 2ft-thick Canadian pine logs.
In the grounds were fake volcanoes that belched dry ice, a flock of peacocks, stone cobras which hissed steam at sunset, 60 ft towers festooned with hundreds of flaming torches (lit nightly by staff) and giant statues of nude women, purportedly modelled on some of Nygard's favourite girlfriends.
At weekends, he would host lavish parties, which appeared on various TV documentaries, including Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous.
The place became a magnet for freeloading celebrities and, while Kai believes they generally had the most fleeting and brief relationship with Nygard, photos of their visits were then plastered across company literature and websites.
Prince Andrew, to cite one example, was recorded for posterity wandering with the long-haired fashion magnate on the beach, wearing blue shorts and boat shoes.
Born in the 1980s, Kai spent the first three years of his life in the Bahamas until his mother, Patricia, left Nygard, with whom she'd had three children but never married.
They moved first to California and then to the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. Over subsequent years, he had almost no regular contact with the fashion tycoon aside from occasional visits during school holidays, where he met various half-siblings.
'He would have one family weekend per year at his lake cottage, and a few days set aside for Christmas,' says Kai of the somewhat unorthodox arrangement. 'During those times, the days were filled with activities like horseback riding or mini golf.
'He could be a very charismatic person when he wanted to be and the family weekends were very light and brief.'
In the very limited time he spent with his father during childhood, Kai saw nothing that gave him reason to suspect that Peter Nygard was guilty of criminality, though he did have a highly volatile personality.
'He would yell and scream at his staff often, and that always was upsetting to everyone around it, but he would describe his yelling as 'passion' because of his 'high standards',' Kai says.
Nygard's children were further told that he 'lived a consensual, non-monogamous lifestyle,' Kai says. 'He made speeches at dinner to family when we were together to talk about how he hoped everyone got a wonderful partner and wished that he could find that special someone, but that it wasn't the life for him.
'He also had girlfriends that were persistently with him, always two or three, and often they were around for years. He wasn't embarrassed about it. He flaunted it on TV, it was part of his brand, something he showed the whole world. He was proud of it.'
Be that as it may, rumours of predatory behaviour by Nygard —and worse — had occasionally reared their ugly head, only to be quickly suppressed: a relatively easy task before the internet.
In 1980, for example, he was charged with the rape of an 18-year-old, but the charge was dropped when the complainant refused to testify. In 1996, three female employees meanwhile filed sexual harassment complaints in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
It looked like his hand was on her thigh, rubbing.
One, a 39-year-old communications manager, said that, when called into Nygard's office, she would 'find him in a state of undress . . . with his hands down the front of his pants, fondling himself.' He settled by giving the women $18,500 (£13,600) and denied any wrongdoing.
Then, in 2010, a Canadian TV network put out a Panorama-style documentary about Nygard, focusing on alleged sex abuse and harassment of former employees.
It quoted a former stewardess on his private plane who alleged that on one journey — during which Nygard was accompanied by a troupe of topless women — he lost his temper with staff, shouting: 'You are nothing! You are garbage! I am God!'
The programme also alleged that Nygard had engaged in 'inappropriate sexual contact' with a young woman who had been brought to his home in 2003 from the Dominican Republic. Nygard denied that either incident had happened, and sued to stop the documentary being broadcast.
Fast forward to May 2019, however, and those ugly incidents were largely forgotten. Kai, who was by then in his late 30s, had worked for his father's companies for just over two years after leaving college, but quit to pursue a career in activism and health science.
Nygard's trip to Los Angeles afforded them a rare opportunity to catch up, so he attended the aforementioned dinner party in Venice Beach.
As the night wore on, he recalls becoming uncomfortable about his father's behaviour towards an eight-year-old girl, who was attending with her mother, one of Nygard's old girlfriends.
'He's got her sitting right next to him at dinner, which is usually his girlfriend chair. And he's a creature of routine. So I'm already thinking this is weird.
'He's trying to act like the Papa. It was just weird . . . I'm noticing things. I'm noticing that he's telling her little secrets at dinner. Putting his hand close to her ear and going all hush-hush.' At the end of dinner, most of the other 20-odd guests got up to adjourn to the card table. However, Kai adds: 'I'm still watching him. Her chair gets pushed back. He brings her round to him.
'She was on his right side. He brings her to his left side, with his arm around her waist, and I see his elbow change and start moving as if — it looked to me, I couldn't see, but it looked like his hand was on her upper thigh, and rubbing. That's what it looked like to me . . . Everything in my body told me he was doing something terrible.'
'I had a huge adrenaline rush and I immediately told the mother to get her daughter away from him,' he adds. 'I stood up next to him and looked in his eyes. At that moment, for me, it was like all the walls were crashing down around him . . . And I realised that, yeah, he's probably trying to groom that girl.'
Nygard vigorously denied wrongdoing, and even called Kai 'sick' for thinking as much. But Kai was unconvinced.
Then, in February last year, ten women filed a bombshell lawsuit in New York claiming that the fashion magnate had used wealth and status to 'entice underage girls' from 'young, impressionable and often impoverished backgrounds' into his home, where they would be 'plied with alcohol' and (some allege) date-rape drugs, before being taken to Nygard's private quarters, where he would 'assault, rape and sodomise' them. Court papers claimed they were then coerced into joining a globe-trotting harem of sex workers paid thousands of dollars from Nygard's company funds and trafficked around the world on his company's private jet, which reportedly boasts a stripper pole.
One alleged victim, who was just 14 at the time, claimed Nygard raped her and paid her $5,000 (£3,700).
Another said her encounter with Nygard began with him showing her pornography after which he raped her, 'causing her extraordinary trauma and pain', the suit states.
Three of his existing ten accusers were 14 at the time. Three more were 15.
Within days, dozens more alleged victims had come forward. By the summer, some 57 survivors were pursuing legal action — and the number of alleged victims had reached 100.
Kai again confronted his father, only to be told it was all 'lies' and asked to speak out publicly in his father's support. But days later a friend texted Kai to complain about a recent visit to Nygard's house in Los Angeles.
'He said he'd brought a female friend with him, who had one or two drinks and had started to feel very high. Nygard took her up to his room and aggressively had sex with her, not using a condom.
'When I heard that, I knew he was not only as bad as people said he was, but was a dangerous criminal and had to be stopped.' He duly alerted the authorities about the friend's message. In a podcast called Live To Walk Again, released this week, he revealed that he began helping both the police and the alleged victims' lawyers, who he regards as 'heroes'.
Over the summer, Kai also used official positions held in Nygard firms to block two apparent efforts to move assets overseas, amid concerns that the tycoon might flee to evade justice.
PODCAST EPISODE: Peter Nygard Discusses His Father
'Through the course of ten months I also helped several survivors to file criminally against him, and spent countless hours on the phone with survivors, lawyers and authorities,' he says. Last month Nygard was arrested on U.S. charges at a home in the Royalwood area of Winnipeg. He spent Christmas behind bars and has consistently denied any wrongdoing, saying he 'expects to be vindicated' in court.
Kai has renounced his inheritance and is working on 'making the world a better place' by campaigning to close legal loopholes exploited by sex offenders.
'I'm very happy earning my own money, as I have all my life. We've never had a trust fund or an allowance, and since his money has been made through pain and suffering, I won't accept a potential inheritance,' he says.
His father's cash, he says, should instead go towards compensating victims. 'My focus now is to help the healing process.'

Edit: From https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?item=47017
COVID-19 BULLETIN #17
The Manitoba government is taking additional proactive measures to help reduce the impact of COVID-19. This includes: • suspending services at licensed child-care centres, effective end-of-day Friday, March 20; • recommending parents with children in these centres begin to make alternate arrangements as soon as possible, even though centres will remain open for the remainder of the week; • continuing to allow home-based child-care providers to operate; and • creating dedicated child-care options for front-line and essential services staff who need them.
Parents who will be providing front-line health care or are a member of a fire, police or paramedic service and will not be able to find alternative child care while services are suspended are asked to contact 204-945-0776 or 1-888-213-4754 (toll-free).
Parents are asked to keep all children and youth home if they have a fever or other respiratory illness symptoms. Schools will be notifying parents that students will be sent home if they have any of these symptoms.
The province is also advising that: • teachers will continue to be on the job, either in schools or at home, to create learning plans and continue teaching using the distance learning options available; and • all casinos will close effective midnight tonight.
Public health officials are recommending the immediate suspension of visitors in long-term care facilities across Manitoba. Exceptions for compassionate reasons or end of life will be made on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of individual facility managers.
In addition, public health officials are recommending the cancellation of gatherings of more than 50 people, consistent with the announcement made by the federal government.
Public health officials are strongly advising all Manitobans, including health-care providers, to cancel or postpone any non-essential international travel. In addition, public health officials are recommending all international travellers should self-isolate and self-monitor for symptoms for 14 days after returning to Canada.
Health officials are reminding physicians, health-care providers and support staff returning from international travel that they MUST self-identify to their organization/site’s occupational health services.
To support social distancing efforts, Manitoba Health, Seniors and Active Living’s registration and client services office at 300 Carlton St. will be temporarily closed to the public. Staff will continue to register people for Manitoba health coverage and Manitoba Pharmacare benefits through email, phone, fax and mail. Forms and contact information can be found at www.gov.mb.ca/health/mhsip/forms.html.
Yesterday, Manitoba’s Provincial Court, Court of Queen’s Bench and Court of Appeals all introduced new provisions to restrict or reschedule matters over the next several weeks. For more information, visit www.manitobacourts.mb.ca/news/covid-19-update-march-16-2020/.
A new self-assessment tool is now online to help Manitobans determine whether they need to call Health Links–Info Santé to possibly get a referral or to self-isolate. The tool provides interactive advice to users concerned about whether they have contracted COVID-19. It is expected the tool will help with call volumes. For more information, visit www.manitoba.ca/covid19.
Additionally, people calling Health Links–Info Santé can soon expect to hear a new interactive voice response system (IVR). The IVR will allow COVID-19 screening questions to be answered prior to users being connected to operators, which should shorten the length of calls. This technology is anticipated to be up and running as soon as this afternoon.
Any person concerned about their exposure to or risk of having COVID-19 should call Health Links–Info Santé at 204-788-8200 or toll-free at 1-888-315-9257 before arriving at a testing site. Nearly 1,700 patients have visited dedicated testing sites in Winnipeg and Thompson in the past five days including 481 yesterday.
New dedicated testing sites for COVID-19 opened today at the following locations: • Channing Auditorium in the Flin Flon Community Hall, 2 North Ave., Flin Flon; and • Guy Hall, 28 First St. West, The Pas.
Both sites will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday.
All Manitobans should continue to practice good social distancing strategies including minimizing prolonged (more than 10 minutes), close (less than two metres) contact between other individuals in public.
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EDIT: Pallister at 11:15am CST due to Trudeau speaking at 10:30am CST. MB Health to follow Pallister.
Pallister and Manitoba Health to hold press conferences - Pallister at 10:30am CST, MB Health at 11:15am CST or immediately following Pallister.
Edit: MB gov news release https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html
https://globalnews.ca/news/6688482/coronavirus-tuesday-update-from-manitoba-premier-brian-palliste
https://www.youtube.com/globalnews

I would like to just point out this is just my opinion using the facts I was giving. I figured that finding Francis' location in Alabama was the easiest. I concluded that Francis most likely was in Birmingham, AL because he was five hours away from New Orleans for the episode where he went to Mardi Gras with his friends (S2E15 Grandparents: 3:32). From there I looked for what places where 5,000 mi away from Alaska because Malcolm said their house was 5,000 miles away from Alaska (S3E2 Emancipation: 11:10). Since Alaska is a huge state I concluded that he was most likely in Anchorage, AK because Francis said they would get cruise ships (that is farthest north cruises go) and the rest of the state is not that accessible. Also it was in wooded area which Anchorage has. Most people say that it's in California or even Texas but those are only 3,000 miles away. I figured the state had to be south because it doesn't snow often (S6E3 Standee: 2:00). Also their lockers were outside in high school which is more common in hotter states (S4E4 Stupid Girl: 2:20). From their I tried South Carolina which still was too short so I tried Orlando, Fl which ended up being 4,753 miles which is almost 5,000 miles. To make sure that was accurate I saw how long it would take from Orlando to Birmingham which was a little over eight hours which fit with what Hal said it took to drive to Francis after Hal lied to Commandant Spangler (S2E12 Krelboyne Girl: 16:14). So in conclusion I believe they live somewhere in Flordia near Orlando, possibly. This fits with being able to visit Lois' half sister in Manitoba Canada (they say 21 hrs but it is about 29 so it's little off but it works better than other ideas) (S5E20 Victor's Other Family: 2:30) and when they go to an Indian Casino (S2E5 Casino) which could be in Arkansas, Oklahoma or Texas. The only true thing that doesn't go with my prediction is that Malcolm goes to Harvard which he stated is 2,000 miles away, it's 1,281 miles, which is more consistent with Texas (but that doesn't go with the other information) (S7E22 Graduation: 1:15). Since this is more of an outlier than other given information I concluded it was a random number (as most of these could be). Of course everything depends on where in Alaska Francis was which was more of a prediction of mine (even though it fit with the cruises) as well as the Canada thing. Though some things are inconsistent, this is the most reasonable conclusion. As I would like to say again this is only my opinion with the facts that were given to me.

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I'm 42/m from Manitoba Canada. The past year at work had me stressed so I planned a trip. I was on the fence on where i wanted to go, but this was to be a fast trip and it had to be somewhere easy and fast. I decided Vegas was the best option even though I'd be going solo, it is whatever. The weird thing is, I'm not really a social person ... lol.
I started researching tips travelling to vegas alone, things to do, where to stay and stuff like that and was starting to get excited. First things first is booking flights. I had amassed some airmiles so decided to book the flights that way. Only down side to booking with airmiles is the amount of connections. On the flight there I had 3 connections, and on the way back I had 4. I would definitely pay cash next time for a direct flight. Once the flights were booked may 3rd to 7th/19 . It was time to fill up my days.
Years ago I had stumbled upon sites to rent exotic cars and thats where I started. I immediately realized that it was a little expensive(understandable) so I found this gem of a site called Exoticracing.com and immediately booked 10 laps in a 488 gtb 900$ canadian (screw the exchange) . This is something I have always wanted to do and what better way to experience an exotic car than to whip it around a track at 200kph!!!. Exotics racing is truly amazing, right down to the shuttle, greeted at the desk when you arrive, the instruction course, the 2 laps around in the cayanne where the instructor shows you the track .. to the blistering, crazy drive in the 488 with your instructor telling you when to shift, where to brake, when to turn in .. always pushing you to go faster and faster. By the way Mike is the best instructor there tbh. I will definitely make a point of doing this again only I will drive more cars on my next trip
I've also always wanted to see a cirque du soleiel show so I bought a ticket for "O" at Bellagio. Truly a great show and a must see. My seat was terrible though, I sat to the far left of the theatre in the 2nd row from the front, I missed a lot that was happening at the centre of the stage when the pre-show was happening, and missed a lot that was happening at left stage with each act. But all in all, I would recommend this show to anyone. It was amazing the acrobatics these people can do. FYI, If your ticket says (splash Zone) on it, don't be alarmed, you won't get soaked, maybe a light misting from splashing in the pool.
And lastly I booked the Vip reality tv tour. Where the tour guide took you to Tanked, Pawnstars, counts Kustoms, world of toys, the sports memorabilia store, and american restoration. Tbh I shouldn't of booked this tour. I was truly more interested in counts Kustoms, vegas rat rods and american restoration. Pawn stars just doesn't peak my interest. But to be fair, the tour guide was amazing, he had a lot of fun facts about vegas, and he had a seemingly bottemless pit of facts about all of these shows. The thing I hated the most was these venus were so boring to look at, I guess I wouldn't expect the stars to be there all the time, but lets be honest, thats truly what you wanna see, right? We did get to see the toy expert that comes on pawn stars and when we were at American Restoration Rick Dale was there working on an old 50s truck and he came out for pictures!. Each stop was 20 mins, there was more driving then stopping, would not recommend. I would certainly do the other tour which ends at vamped for lunch/supper. Don't ever go on these tours expecting to meet stars.
So what did I do between and after all the stuff I had planned? I put about 50 000 steps/ day on my fit bit walking up and down the strip!!! looking at casinos, all the little stores, the people, everything, there is so much to see in Vegas.
Tips: Wear good comfortable shoes, you will be walking A LOT
Don't take anything from anyone on the strip, they are all an excuse to get you to stop and get money out of you, the free CD guys are the worst and the most sketchy looking.
If you drink, I found going to CVS or walgreens to buy beer was the cheapest ( think 3$ got you a king can) and you can buy them one at a time. Don't buy alcohol at the resort unless you like over paying.
A lot of people say don't shop on the strip, but I went to the fashion show to shop and didn't find the prices too bad, its the canadian exchange that killed me. I also bought couple pairs of shoes at DSW(hardrock).
A lot of the resorts have some sort of free exhibit to check out (bellagio fountain, theres also a garden inside) for one example.
I can't really give advice for people travelling with friends or loved ones, but if your solo, just enjoy your time. Don't let the big crowds fool you or scare you, try not to make eye contact with street people. Its so hard to explain the amount of things happening in Vegas, I bet you could go 100 times and not see everything.
Things I regret: I stayed at the Excalibur, probably would stay at the MGM or Treasure Island next time. The rooms were out dated and didn't have that "oh wow" factor. I think next time I would do the helicoptor tour, more shows, a better vegas tour, and maybe drop the bucks and rent an exotic for the day just for that baller factor.
If you plan on going on a trip and not spending much money, then you should probably plan a different place to go, but if you aren't afraid to spend a little, you aren't afraid of big crowds, drinking, gambling than vegas is absolutely amazing. I will be making this an annual trip for sure. Maybe next time I'll bring some friends, maybe not.

I've been diagnosed with clinical depression and have been wrangling with it for almost seven years now. I've never been into economics or politics but this bit gave me some hope as a young college student feeling stuck in life, unable to see a happy future, and at odds with society. I wasn't expecting UBI to pop up in a self help book and I'm not even sure if posts like this are allowed, but I couldn't sleep last night and it was 4am and I only read two chapters of this book on a whim yet it really stuck with me.
"In the middle of the 1970s, a group of Canadian government officials chose 1 —apparently at random—a small town called Dauphin in the rural province of Manitoba. It was, they knew, nothing special to look at. The nearest city, Winnipeg, was a four-hour drive away. It lay in the middle of the prairies, and most of the people living there were farmers growing a crop called canola. Its seventeen thousand people worked as hard as they could, but they were still struggling. When the canola crop was good, everyone did well—the local car dealership sold cars, and the bar sold booze. When the canola crop was bad, everyone suffered.
And then one day the people of Dauphin were told they had been chosen to be part of an experiment, due to a bold decision by the country’s Liberal government. For a long time, Canadians had been wondering if the welfare state they had been developing, in fits and starts over the years, was too clunky and inefficient and didn’t cover enough people. The point of a welfare state is to establish a safety net below which nobody should ever be allowed to fall: a baseline of security that would prevent people from becoming poor and prevent anxiety. But it turned out there was still a lot of poverty, and a lot of insecurity, in Canada. Something wasn’t working. So somebody had what seemed like an almost stupidly simple idea. Up to now, the welfare state had worked by trying to plug gaps—by catching the people who fell below a certain level and nudging them back up. But if insecurity is about not having enough money to live on, they wondered, what would happen if we just gave everyone enough, with no strings attached? What if we simply mailed every single Canadian citizen—young, old, all of them—a check every year that was enough for them to live on?
It would be set at a carefully chosen rate. You’d get enough to survive, but not enough to have luxuries. They called it a universal basic income. Instead of using a net to catch people when they fall, they proposed to raise the floor on which everyone stands. This idea had even been mooted by right-wing politicians like Richard Nixon, but it had never been tried before. So the Canadians decided to do it, in one place. That’s how for several years, the people of Dauphin were given a guarantee: Each of you will be unconditionally given the equivalent of $19,000 U.S. (in today’s money) by the government. You don’t have to worry. There’s nothing you can do that will take away this basic income.
At that time, over in Toronto, there was a young economics student named Evelyn Forget, and one day, one of her professors told the class about this experiment. She was fascinated. But then, three years into the experiment, power in Canada was transferred to a Conservative government, and the program was abruptly shut down. The guaranteed income vanished. To everyone except the people who got the checks—and one other person—it was quickly forgotten. Thirty years later, that young economics student, Evelyn, had become a professor at the medical school of the University of Manitoba, and she kept bumping up against some disturbing evidence. It is a well-established fact that the poorer you are, the more likely you are to become depressed or anxious—and the more likely you are to become sick in almost every way. In the United States, if you have an income below $20,000, 2 you are more than twice as likely to become depressed as somebody who makes $70,000 or more. And if you receive a regular income from property you own, you are ten times less likely to develop an anxiety disorder than if you don’t get any income from property.
“One of the things I find just astonishing,” she told me, “is the direct relationship between poverty and the number of moodaltering drugs that people take—the antidepressants they take just to get through the day.” If you want to really treat these problems, Evelyn believed, you need to deal with these questions. And so Evelyn found herself wondering about that old experiment that had taken place decades earlier. What were the results? Did the people who were given that guaranteed income get healthier? What else might have changed in their lives? She began to search for academic studies written back then. She found nothing. So she began to write letters and make calls. She knew that the experiment was being studied carefully at the time—that mountains of data were gathered. That was the whole point: it was a study. Where did it go? After a lot of detective work, stretching over five years, she finally got an answer. She was told that the data gathered during the experiment was hidden away in the National Archives, on the verge of being thrown in the trash. “I got there—and found most of it in paper. It was actually sitting in boxes,” she told me. “There were eighteen hundred cubic feet. That’s eighteen hundred bankers’ boxes, full of paper.”
Nobody had ever added up the results. When the Conservatives came to power, they didn’t want anyone to look further— they believed the experiment was a waste of time and contrary to their moral values. So Evelyn and a team of researchers began the long task of figuring out what the basic income experiment had actually achieved, all those years before. At the same time, they started to track down the people who had lived through it, to discover the long-term effects. The first thing that struck Evelyn, as she spoke to the people who’d been through the program, was how vividly they remembered it. Everyone had a story about how it had affected their lives. They told her that, primarily, “the money acted as an insurance policy. It just sort of removed the stress of worrying about whether or not you can afford to keep your kids in school for another year, whether or not you could afford to pay for the things that you had to pay for.”
This had been a conservative farming community, and one of the biggest changes was how women saw themselves. Evelyn met with one woman who had taken her check and used it to become the first female in her family to get a postsecondary education. She trained to be a librarian and rose to be one of the most respected people in the community. She showed Evelyn pictures of her two daughters graduating, and she talked about how proud she was she had been able to become a role model for them. Other people talked about how it lifted their heads above constant insecurity for the first time in their lives. One woman had a disabled husband and six kids, and she made a living by cutting people’s hair in her front room. She explained that the universal income meant for the first time the family had “some cream in the coffee”—small things that made life a little better.
These were moving stories—but the hard facts lay in the number crunching. After years of compiling the data, here are some of the key effects Evelyn discovered. Students stayed at school longer, and performed better there. The number of low-birth-weight babies declined, as more women delayed having children until they were ready. Parents with newborn babies stayed at home longer to care for them, and didn’t hurry back to work. Overall work hours fell modestly, as people spent more time with their kids, or learning.
But there was one result that struck me as particularly important. Evelyn went through the medical records of the people taking part—and she found that, as she explained to me, there were “fewer people showing up at their doctor’s [office] complaining about mood disorders.” Depression and anxiety in the community fell significantly. When it came to severe depression and other mental health disorders that were so bad the patient had to be hospitalized, there was a drop of 9 percent in just three years. Why was that? “It just removed the stress—or reduced the stress—that people dealt with in their everyday lives,” Evelyn concludes. You knew you’d have a secure income next month, and next year, so you could create a picture of yourself in the future that was stable. It had another unanticipated effect, she told me. If you know you have enough money to live on securely, no matter what happens, you can turn down a job that treats you badly, or that you find humiliating. “It makes you less of a hostage to the job you have, and some of the jobs that people work just in order to survive are terrible, demeaning jobs,” she says. It gave you “that little bit of power to say—I don’t need to stay here.” That meant that employers had to make work more appealing. And over time, it was poised to reduce inequality in the town—which we would expect to reduce the depression caused by extreme status differences.
For Evelyn, all this tells us something fundamental about the nature of depression. “If it were just a brain disorder,” she told me, “if it was just a physical ailment, you wouldn’t expect to see such a strong correlation with poverty,” and you wouldn’t see such a significant reduction from granting a guaranteed basic income. “Certainly,” she said, “it makes the lives of individuals who receive it more comfortable—which works as an antidepressant.” As Evelyn looks out over the world today, and how it has changed from the Dauphin of the mid-1970s, she thinks the need for a program like this— across all societies—has only grown.
Back then, “people still expected to graduate from high school and to go get a job and work at the same company [or] at least in the same industry until they’d be sixty-five, and then they’d be retired with a nice gold watch and a nice pension.” But “people are struggling to find that kind of stability in labor today … I don’t think those days are ever coming back. We live in a globalized world. The world has changed, fundamentally.” We won’t regain security by going backward, especially as robots and technology render more and more jobs obsolete—but we can go forward, to a basic income for everyone.
As Barack Obama suggested in an interview late in his presidency, a universal income may be the best tool we have for recreating security, not with bogus promises to rebuild a lost world, but by doing something distinctively new. Buried in those dusty boxes of data in the Canadian national archives, Evelyn might have found one of the most important antidepressants for the twenty-first century. I wanted to understand the implications of this more, and to explore my own concerns and questions about it, so I went to see a brilliant Dutch economic historian named Rutger Bregman. He is the leading European champion of the idea of a universal basic income. 4 We ate burgers and inhaled caffeinated drinks and ended up talking late into the night, discussing the implications of all this. “Time and again,” he said, “we blame a collective problem on the individual. So you’re depressed? You should get a pill. You don’t have a job? Go to a job coach—we’ll teach you how to write a résumé or [to join] LinkedIn. But obviously, that doesn’t go to the root of the problem … Not many people are thinking about what’s actually happened to our labor market, and our society, that these [forms of despair] are popping up everywhere.” Even middle-class people are living with a chronic “lack of certainty” about what their lives will be like in even a few months’ time, he says.
The alternative approach—a guaranteed income—is partly about removing this humiliation and replacing it with security. It has now been tried in many places on a small scale, as he documents in his book Utopia for Realists. There’s always a pattern, he shows. When it’s first proposed, people say— what, just give out money? That will destroy the work ethic. People will just spend it on alcohol and drugs and watching TV. And then the results come in. For example, in the Great Smoky Mountains, there’s a Native American tribal group of eight thousand people who decided to open a casino. But they did it a little differently. They decided they were going to split the profits equally among everyone in the group—they’d all get a check for (as it turned out) $6,000 a year, rising to $9,000 later. It was, in effect, a universal basic income for everyone. Outsiders told them they were crazy. But when the program was studied in detail by social scientists, it turned out that this guaranteed income triggered one big change. Parents chose to spend a lot more time with their children, and because they were less stressed, they were more able to be present with their kids. The result? Behavioral problems like ADHD and childhood depression fell by 40 percent. 5 I couldn’t find any other instance of a reduction in psychiatric problems in children by that amount in a comparable period of time. They did it by freeing up the space for parents to connect with their kids. All over the world—from Brazil to India—these experiments keep finding the same result. Rutger told me: “When I ask people—‘What would you [personally] do with a basic income?’ about 99 percent of people say—‘I have dreams, I have ambitions, I’m going to do something ambitious and useful.’ ” But when he asks them what they think other people would do with a basic income, they say—oh, they’ll become lifeless zombies, they’ll bingewatch Netflix all day.
This program does trigger a big change, he says—but not the one most people imagine. The biggest change, Rutger believes, will be in how people think about work. When Rutger asks people what they actually do at work, and whether they think it is worthwhile, he is amazed by how many people readily volunteer that the work they do is pointless and adds nothing to the world. The key to a guaranteed income, 7 Rutger says, is that it empowers people to say no. For the first time, they will be able to leave jobs that are degrading, or humiliating, or excruciating. Obviously, some boring things will still have to be done. That means those employers will have to offer either better wages, or better working conditions. In one swoop, the worst jobs, the ones that cause the most depression and anxiety, will have to radically improve, to attract workers. People will be free to create businesses based on things they believe in, to run Kotti-style projects to improve their community, to look after their kids and their elderly relatives. Those are all real work—but much of the time, the market doesn’t reward this kind of work. When people are free to say no, Rutger says, “I think the definition of work would [become] to add something of value—to make the world a little more interesting, or a bit more beautiful.”
This is, we have to be candid, an expensive proposal—a real guaranteed income would take a big slice of the national wealth of any developed country. At the moment, it’s a distant goal. But every civilizing proposal started off as a utopian dream—from the welfare state, to women’s rights, to gay equality. President Obama said it could happen in the next twenty years. 8 If we start to argue and campaign for it now—as an antidepressant; as a way of dealing with the pervasive stress that is dragging so many of us down—it will, over time, also help us to see one of the factors that are causing all this despair in the first place. It’s a way, Rutger explained to me, of restoring a secure future to people who are losing the ability to see one for themselves; a way of restoring to all of us the breathing space to change our lives, and our culture. I was conscious, as I thought back over these seven provisional hints at solutions to our depression and anxiety, that they require huge changes—in our selves, and in our societies. When I felt that way, a niggling voice would come into my head. It said—nothing will ever change. The forms of social change you’re arguing for are just a fantasy. We’re stuck here. Have you watched the news? You think positive changes are a-coming? When these thoughts came to me, I always thought of one of my closest friends.
In 1993, the journalist Andrew Sullivan was diagnosed as HIV-positive. It was the height of the AIDS crisis. Gay men were dying all over the world. There was no treatment in sight. Andrew’s first thought was: I deserve this. I brought it on myself. He had been raised in a Catholic family in a homophobic culture 9 in which, as a child, he thought he was the only gay person in the whole world, because he never saw anyone like him on TV, or on the streets, or in books. He lived in a world where if you were lucky, being gay was a punchline, and if you were unlucky, it got you a punch in the face. So now he thought—I had it coming. This fatal disease is the punishment I deserve. For Andrew, being told he was going to die of AIDS made him think of an image. He had once gone to see a movie and something went wrong with the projector, and the picture went all wrong—it displayed at a weird, unwatchable angle. It stayed like that for a few minutes. His life now, he realized, was like sitting in that cinema, except this picture would never be right again.
Not long after, he left his job as editor of one of the leading magazines in the United States, the New Republic. His closest friend, Patrick, was dying of AIDS—the fate Andrew was now sure awaited him. So Andrew went to Provincetown, the gay enclave at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachussetts, to die. That summer, in a small house near the beach, he began to write a book. He knew it would be the last thing he ever did, so he decided to write something advocating a crazy, preposterous idea—one so outlandish that nobody had ever written a book about it before. He was going to propose that gay people should be allowed to get married, just like straight people. He thought this would be the only way to free gay people from the self-hatred and shame that had trapped Andrew himself. It’s too late for me, he thought, but maybe it will help the people who come after me. When the book—Virtually Normal—came out a year later, Patrick died when it had only been in the bookstores for a few days, and Andrew was widely ridiculed for suggesting something so absurd as gay marriage. Andrew was attacked not just by right-wingers, but by many gay leftwingers, who said he was a sellout, a wannabe heterosexual, a freak, for believing in marriage. A group called the Lesbian Avengers turned up to protest at his events with his face in the crosshairs of a gun. Andrew looked out at the crowd and despaired. This mad idea—his last gesture before dying —was clearly going to come to nothing.
When I hear people saying that the changes we need to make in order to deal with depression and anxiety can’t happen, I imagine going back in time, to the summer of 1993, to that beach house in Provincetown, and telling Andrew something: Okay, Andrew, you’re not going to believe me, but this is what’s going to happen next. Twenty-five years from now, you’ll be alive. I know; it’s amazing; but wait—that’s not the best part. This book you’ve written—it’s going to spark a movement. And this book—it’s going to be quoted in a key Supreme Court ruling declaring marriage equality for gay people. And I’m going to be with you and your future husband the day after you receive a letter from the president of the United States telling you that this fight for gay marriage that you started has succeeded in part because of you. He’s going to light up the White House like the rainbow flag that day. He’s going to invite you to have dinner there, to thank you for what you’ve done. Oh, and by the way—that president? He’s going to be black.
It would have seemed like science fiction. But it happened. It’s not a small thing to overturn two thousand years of gay people being jailed and scorned and beaten and burned. It happened for one reason only. Because enough brave people banded together and demanded it. Every single person reading this is the beneficiary of big civilizing social changes that seemed impossible when somebody first proposed them. Are you a woman? My grandmothers weren’t even allowed to have their own bank accounts until they were in their forties, by law. Are you a worker? The weekend was mocked as a utopian idea when labor unions first began to fight for it. Are you black, or Asian, or disabled? You don’t need me to fill in this list. So I told myself: if you hear a thought in your head telling you that we can’t deal with the social causes of depression and anxiety, you should stop and realize—that’s a symptom of the depression and anxiety itself.
Yes, the changes we need now are huge. They’re about the size of the revolution in how gay people were treated. But that revolution happened. There’s a huge fight ahead of us to really deal with these problems. But that’s because it’s a huge crisis. We can deny that—but then we’ll stay trapped in the problem. Andrew taught me: The response to a huge crisis isn’t to go home and weep. It’s to go big. It’s to demand something that seems impossible—and not rest until you’ve achieved it. Every now and then, Rutger—the leading European campaigner for a universal basic income—will read a news story about somebody who has made a radical career choice. A fifty-year-old man realizes he’s unfulfilled as a manager so he quits, and becomes an opera singer. A forty-five-year-old woman quits Goldman Sachs and goes to work for a charity. “It is always framed as something heroic,” Rutger told me, as we drank our tenth Diet Coke between us. People ask them, in awe: “Are you really going to do what you want to do?” Are you really going to change your life, so you are doing something that fulfills you? It’s a sign, Rutger says, of how badly off track we’ve gone, that having fulfilling work is seen as a freakish exception, like winning the lottery, instead of how we should all be living. Giving everyone a guaranteed basic income, he says “is actually all about making [it so we tell everyone]—‘Of course you’re going to do what you want to do. You’re a human being. You only live once. What would you want to do [instead]—something you don’t want to do?’ ”"
TLDR: Economic insecurity/poverty is a leading cause of depression and anxiety and a main detractor towards having a fulfilling life. UBI could be an answer, and we need to make it happen. (Again, I'm not really into politics- I usually only occasionally prod at news about the hellfire state of the world with a ten foot pole to keep some semblance of sanity- so I'm sorry if I come off as a bit ignorant.)

October 31, 2019: The House votes to formalize its impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine.
August 10, 2019: Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his Manhattan jail cell where he was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
August 7, 2019: The bodies of Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky are found in Manitoba, Canada. Police suspect the friends went on a killing spree across the country, and had been searching for them for 20 days.
July 7, 2019: The US women's national soccer team wins the World Cup for a fourth time in a row.
April 18, 2019: A redacted version of the special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign's possible collusion is released to the public.
March 15, 2019: Fifty people are killed and another 50 are injured in attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
March 12, 2019: Federal prosecutors in Boston charge at least 50 people in the "Varsity Blues" scandal, accusing many of them of using bribes to get their students into college. Among the defendants are actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
March 2019: Governments around the world banned the Boeing 737 Max from their airspaces after two crashes in 5 months killed 346 people.
January 10, 2019: Jayme Closs, a 13-year-old Wisconsin girl who went missing three months prior, escapes from a rural home where she was being held captive by her parent's killer. He later pleads guilty to the crimes.
October 2, 2018: Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is murdered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
September 27, 2016: More than 20 million people tune in to watch the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
July 10, 2018: 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach are rescued from a flooded cave after more than two weeks stuck in the cavern.
June 24, 2018: Saudi Arabia lifts its ban on allowing women to drive.
May 19, 2018: Millions around the world tune in to watch Britain's Prince Harry marry American actress Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle.
April 24, 2018: DNA submitted to an ancestry database helps investigators catch who they believe to be the "Golden State Killer", a murderer and rapist who tormented the Bay Area in the 1970s and '80s.
April 6-June 20, 2018: Under its "zero tolerance" immigration policy, the Trump administration separates thousands of children from their migrant parents at the border, causing widespread outrage on a national level.
April 13, 2018: The US, Britain, and France conduct air strikes against Syria in response to President Bashar al-Assad's suspected use of chemical weapons on citizens in a civil war gripping the country.
March 24, 2018: Hundreds of thousands take part in the March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C., organized by survivors of the Parkland shooting to call for gun control reform.
February 14, 2018: Seventeen students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, are killed, and another 17 are injured, in a horrific shooting.
February 4, 2018: The Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots to win their first-ever Super Bowl and stun viewers with a now-classic trick play.
February 9-25, 2018: The Winter Olympics are held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
January 14, 2018: A teen girl escapes from her family home in southern California and calls police to rescue the rest of her 12 siblings from their abusive parents.
November 21, 2017: Dramatic video emerges showing a North Korean soldier defecting to South Korea while being shot at.
November 15, 2017: The San Juan, an Argentine navy submarine, goes missing. It was found at the bottom of the ocean almost a year later, with all 44 crew dead from an explosion that happened in the vessel.
October 12, 2017: Trump announces that the Pakistani military has rescued Canadian-American couple Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman and their children from the Haqqani network.
October 1, 2017: Fifty-eight people are killed and more than 850 are injured after a gunman opens fire on a Las Vegas music festival from a 32nd floor room in the Mandalay Bay casino.
October 2017: Famous men are culled in the #MeToo movement.
July 8, 2017: The New York Times publishes a report on how members of Trump's campaign — including his son Donald Jr. — met with Russian agents in Trump Tower in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election.
June 1, 2017: Trump announces his intention to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord.
May 22, 2017: Twenty-two people leaving an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena are killed in a terrorist bombing. Another 50 people were injured.
April 19, 2017: Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez dies by suicide in prison, where he was serving a life sentence for the June 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd.
February 26, 2017: "La La Land" is mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner at the Oscars, instead of "Moonlight."
January 28, 2017: Serena Williams beats her sister Venus to win the Australian Open, while secretly eight weeks pregnant with her first child.
January 21, 2017: Hundreds of thousands of people gather in Washington, D.C. and cities around the world to take part in the Women's March, protesting Trump's election.
January 20, 2017: Donald Trump is sworn in as the nation's 45th president.
November 8, 2016: Donald Trump is elected president, defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in a landmark upset.
November 3, 2016: The Chicago Cubs break the Billy Goat curse and win their first World Series in 108 years.
October 8, 2016: The Washington Post publishes a video from a 2005 interview between "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush and Donald Trump, in which the latter said he can grab women "by the p---y" because he's a star.
October 7, 2016: The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security issue a joint statement warning that the Russians are trying to interfere in the presidential election.
September 12, 2016: The Indianapolis Star publishes a report detailing how USA Gymnastics failed to report sexual abuse committed by Michigan State University physician Dr. Larry Nassar.
September 15, 2016: Angelina Jolie files for divorce from husband Brad Pitt.
August 26, 2016: San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sits on the bench during the national anthem, saying "I have to take a stand for people that are oppressed."
August 5-21, 2016: The 2016 summer Olympics are held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
July 7, 2016: Five Dallas police officers are killed while working at a Black Lives Matter rally. Authorities killed the gunman with a bomb delivered by a robot.
June 24, 2016: Britain votes to leave the European Union.
June 12, 2016: A gunman opens fire inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 and injuring 53.
June 2, 2016: Brock Turner, a former Stanford swim team member, is sentenced to just six months in jail for sexually assaulting an inebriated woman outside a campus fraternity.
April 21, 2016: Music legend Prince is found dead in the elevator of his Minnesota estate. An autopsy would later find that the singer died of an overdose of the opioid fentanyl.
April 3, 2016: A group of news outlets around the world publish stories based on the Panama Papers, a leak of 11.5 million documents from a Panamanian law firm, showing the shady ways wealthy people use offshore accounts.
December 18, 2015: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is released, earning more than $2 billion at the box office worldwide.
November 13-14, 2015: Terror attacks strike Paris for a second time in a year, resulting in the deaths of 130 people and nearly 500 wounded.
August 26, 2015: WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward are shot dead while filming a live TV segment in Virginia.
August 21, 2015: Three American men, including two active military members, thwart a terrorist attack on a French train.
July 20, 2015: Diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba are restored, decades after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
July 11, 2015: Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escapes for a second time from his cell at a Mexican high-security prison.
June 26, 2015: The Supreme Court issues a 5-4 ruling that gay marriage is legal, legalizing same-sex unions nationwide.
June 16, 2015: New York City real estate mogul Donald Trump announces his candidacy for president with a speech at Trump Tower calling Mexican immigrants "rapists."
June 6, 2015: Joyce Mitchell, a worker at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, helps two convicted murderers escape.
June 6, 2015: American Pharoah wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse in 37 years to earn the Triple Crown of American horse racing.
May 2015: An outbreak of the Zika virus spreads to Brazil, and eventually moves its way up into Central America and the Caribbean.
March 24, 2015: Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 crashes in the Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
February 1, 2015: The New England Patriots win Super Bowl XLIX thanks to an interception with just seconds left in the game.
January 7-9, 2015: Paris is the target of multiple terror attacks that leave 17 people dead.
November 24, 2014: Hackers breach the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment and release embarrassing information against the company.
September 4, 2014: Comedian Joan Rivers dies while undergoing plastic surgery to her throat.
August 9, 2014: Unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown is shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, causing several days of riots in the community and fueling the Black Lives Matter movement.
August 19, 2014: American photojournalist James Foley is beheaded in a video recorded by ISIS, marking the beginning of the terrorist group's rise to power.
August 11, 2014: Beloved actor and comedian Robin Williams is found dead from a suicide at his home in California.
May 31, 2014: The US government agrees to release five Taliban commanders in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had gone missing from a base in Afghanistan five years prior.
May 24, 2014: Rapper Kanye West marries reality star Kim Kardashian in a lavish wedding in Florence, Italy.
May 5, 2014: TMZ obtains footage showing Beyoncé getting between her husband and sister when the two come to blows while riding in an elevator after the Met Gala.
March 23, 2014: The World Health Organization reports that there has been an outbreak of Ebola in Guinea, the start of the largest outbreak of the virus in history.
April 2014: The Flint water crisis begins as the Michigan city tries to cut costs by getting their water from the Flint River instead of getting it from Detroit.
March 25, 2014: Actress Gwyneth Paltrow announces her separation from her Coldplay frontman husband Chris Martin on her blog Goop, saying they have decided to "consciously uncouple".
March 8, 2014: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously vanishes off radar while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.
March 2014: Russia invades Ukraine and annexes the Crimea, after Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, is toppled in anti-government protests.
February 18, 2014: A 39-year-old Jimmy Fallon starts his tenure as host of "The Tonight Show".
February 2, 2014: Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman dies at the age of 46 from a drug overdose.
February 1, 2014: Dylan Farrow writes an essay describing how her father, director Woody Allen, molested her as a child. Allen was never charged and denies the allegation.
December 5, 2013: Nelson Mandela, South Africa's trailblazing first black president, dies at the age of 25.
July 22, 2013: Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, gives birth to a baby boy named Prince George, who becomes third in line to the British throne, behind his father and grandfather.
July 13, 2013: The Black Lives Matter movement begins after George Zimmerman is acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the shooting death of black teen Trayvon Martin.
July 7, 2013: Scottish tennis player Andy Murray becomes the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.
July 6, 2013: "Glee" star Cory Monteith is found dead in a Vancouver, British Columbia, hotel room after succumbing to a drug and alcohol overdose.
June 6, 2013: The Guardian and the Washington Post publish stories based on information leaked to them by government contractor Edward Snowden.
May 6, 2013: Three women who had been missing for about a decade are rescued from the Cleveland, Ohio, home of Ariel Castro.
May 16, 2013: The now-defunct news site Gawker publishes a video showing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack.
April 15, 2013: Two pressure cooker bombs explode at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 250 others.
March 13, 2013: Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is elected pope, becoming the first South American to lead the Roman Catholic Church. He assumes the name Pope Francis.
February 28, 2013: Basketball legend Dennis Rodman travels to North Korea and meets leader Kim Jong-un, becoming the first American to meet the new leader since he assumed office two years prior.
December 14, 2012: A mentally-disturbed shooter kills 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before killing himself.
November 9, 2012: Gen. David Petraeus resigns as director of the CIA after the FBI uncovers the fact that he shared classified information with his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell.
November 6, 2012: Voters in Colorado and Washington vote to legalize recreational marijuana, becoming the first states in the US to do so.
October 29, 2012: Superstorm Sandy causes widespread death and damage, especially in the Northeastern US.
October 22, 2012: After being accused of conducting an elaborate doping scheme, American cyclist Lance Armstrong is stripped of his seven Tour de France medals and banned from cycling competitions for life.
September 11, 2012: US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans are killed after a mob storms the US mission in Benghazi, Libya.
July 20, 2012: A shooter opens fire at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight," in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring dozens of others.
November 7, 2011: Michael Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection to the late singer's overdose death.
October 20, 2011: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is captured and killed by revolutionaries, bringing an end to his 42-year regime.
October 3, 2011: American Amanda Knox, 24, is freed from an Italian prison after her conviction in the 2009 murder of her British roommate is overthrown.
September 17, 2011: The Occupy Wall Street movement begins with about 1,000 people protesting in downtown Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
July 23, 2011: Grammy Award-winning singer Amy Winehouse, 27, is found dead at her home in north London.
July 22, 2011: A right-wing Christian extremist kills 77 people — most of them children — in attacks on Oslo, Norway, and the nearby island of Utoya.
July 7, 2011: Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid shutters after it was revealed that staffers hacked into the phones of prominent figures like Prince William to mine for stories.
May 14, 2011: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, is pulled off a Paris-bound flight in New York and charged with sexually assaulting a hotel maid.
May 1, 2011: President Barack Obama addresses the nation to announce the death of terrorist Osama bin Laden, after a successful Navy SEAL raid on the 9/11 mastermind's compound in Pakistan.
April 29, 2011: 3 billion people tune in to watch Britain's Prince William marry college sweetheart Kate Middleton in a ceremony at Westminster Cathedral in London
March 11, 2011: An earthquake in Japan causes the second-worst nuclear accident in history.
March 2011: Civil war breaks out in Syria after military defectors create the Free Syrian Army, to combat those loyal to President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
February 11, 2011: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns under pressure from revolutionaries, giving up the seat he had held for three decades.
January 28, 2011: "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen enters rehab, a day after the actor was rushed from his home to the hospital for abdominal and chest pains, according to CBS Los Angeles.
December 17, 2010: The suicide of a Tunisian street vendor serves as a catalyst for the Arab Spring.
December 8, 2010: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange turns himself in to British police after Swedish authorities put out a warrant for his arrest in connection to a rape accusation.
October 13, 2010: 33 miners are rescued after spending 69 days trapped in a Chilean copper mine.
June 27, 2010: The FBI arrests 10 Russian spies caught living deep undercover in the United States.
May 2, 2010: The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund sign off on a €110 million bailout of Greece, to save the EU country from default.
April 20, 2010: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico causes the biggest marine oil spill in history.
April 14, 2010: An eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano causes an ash cloud to spread across Europe, grounding flights in the region.
January 12, 2010: Hundreds of thousands of people are killed after a 11117.0-magnitude earthquake strikes the island nation of Haiti.

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October 31, 2019: The House votes to formalize its impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine.
August 10, 2019: Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his Manhattan jail cell where he was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
August 7, 2019: The bodies of Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky are found in Manitoba, Canada. Police suspect the friends went on a killing spree across the country, and had been searching for them for 20 days.
July 7, 2019: The US women's national soccer team wins the World Cup for a fourth time in a row.
April 18, 2019: A redacted version of the special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign's possible collusion is released to the public.
March 15, 2019: Fifty people are killed and another 50 are injured in attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
March 12, 2019: Federal prosecutors in Boston charge at least 50 people in the "Varsity Blues" scandal, accusing many of them of using bribes to get their students into college. Among the defendants are actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
March 2019: Governments around the world banned the Boeing 737 Max from their airspaces after two crashes in 5 months killed 346 people.
January 10, 2019: Jayme Closs, a 13-year-old Wisconsin girl who went missing three months prior, escapes from a rural home where she was being held captive by her parent's killer. He later pleads guilty to the crimes.
October 2, 2018: Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is murdered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
September 27, 2018: More than 20 million people tune in to watch the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
July 10, 2018: 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach are rescued from a flooded cave after more than two weeks stuck in the cavern.
June 24, 2018: Saudi Arabia lifts its ban on allowing women to drive.
May 19, 2018: Millions around the world tune in to watch Britain's Prince Harry marry American actress Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle.
April 24, 2018: DNA submitted to an ancestry database helps investigators catch who they believe to be the "Golden State Killer", a murderer and rapist who tormented the Bay Area in the 1970s and '80s.
April 6-June 20, 2018: Under its "zero tolerance" immigration policy, the Trump administration separates thousands of children from their migrant parents at the border, causing widespread outrage on a national level.
April 13, 2018: The US, Britain, and France conduct air strikes against Syria in response to President Bashar al-Assad's suspected use of chemical weapons on citizens in a civil war gripping the country.
March 24, 2018: Hundreds of thousands take part in the March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C., organized by survivors of the Parkland shooting to call for gun control reform.
February 14, 2018: Seventeen students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, are killed, and another 17 are injured, in a horrific shooting.
February 4, 2018: The Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots to win their first-ever Super Bowl and stun viewers with a now-classic trick play.
February 9-25, 2018: The Winter Olympics are held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
January 14, 2018: A teen girl escapes from her family home in southern California and calls police to rescue the rest of her 12 siblings from their abusive parents.
November 21, 2017: Dramatic video emerges showing a North Korean soldier defecting to South Korea while being shot at.
November 15, 2017: The San Juan, an Argentine navy submarine, goes missing. It was found at the bottom of the ocean almost a year later, with all 44 crew dead from an explosion that happened in the vessel.
October 12, 2017: Trump announces that the Pakistani military has rescued Canadian-American couple Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman and their children from the Haqqani network.
October 1, 2017: Fifty-eight people are killed and more than 850 are injured after a gunman opens fire on a Las Vegas music festival from a 32nd floor room in the Mandalay Bay casino.
October 2017: Famous men are culled in the #MeToo movement.
July 8, 2017: The New York Times publishes a report on how members of Trump's campaign — including his son Donald Jr. — met with Russian agents in Trump Tower in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election.
June 1, 2017: Trump announces his intention to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord.
May 22, 2017: Twenty-two people leaving an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena are killed in a terrorist bombing. Another 50 people were injured.
April 19, 2017: Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez dies by suicide in prison, where he was serving a life sentence for the June 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd.
February 26, 2017: "La La Land" is mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner at the Oscars, instead of "Moonlight."
January 28, 2017: Serena Williams beats her sister Venus to win the Australian Open, while secretly eight weeks pregnant with her first child.
January 21, 2017: Hundreds of thousands of people gather in Washington, D.C. and cities around the world to take part in the Women's March, protesting Trump's election.
January 20, 2017: Donald Trump is sworn in as the nation's 45th president.
November 8, 2016: Donald Trump is elected president, defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in a landmark upset.
November 3, 2016: The Chicago Cubs break the Billy Goat curse and win their first World Series in 108 years.
October 8, 2016: The Washington Post publishes a video from a 2005 interview between "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush and Donald Trump, in which the latter said he can grab women "by the p---y" because he's a star.
October 7, 2016: The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security issue a joint statement warning that the Russians are trying to interfere in the presidential election.
September 12, 2016: The Indianapolis Star publishes a report detailing how USA Gymnastics failed to report sexual abuse committed by Michigan State University physician Dr. Larry Nassar.
September 15, 2016: Angelina Jolie files for divorce from husband Brad Pitt.
August 26, 2016: San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sits on the bench during the national anthem, saying "I have to take a stand for people that are oppressed."
August 5-21, 2016: The 2016 summer Olympics are held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
July 7, 2016: Five Dallas police officers are killed while working at a Black Lives Matter rally. Authorities killed the gunman with a bomb delivered by a robot.
June 24, 2016: Britain votes to leave the European Union.
June 12, 2016: A gunman opens fire inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 and injuring 53.
June 2, 2016: Brock Turner, a former Stanford swim team member, is sentenced to just six months in jail for sexually assaulting an inebriated woman outside a campus fraternity.
April 21, 2016: Music legend Prince is found dead in the elevator of his Minnesota estate. An autopsy would later find that the singer died of an overdose of the opioid fentanyl.
April 3, 2016: A group of news outlets around the world publish stories based on the Panama Papers, a leak of 11.5 million documents from a Panamanian law firm, showing the shady ways wealthy people use offshore accounts.
December 18, 2015: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is released, earning more than $2 billion at the box office worldwide.
November 13-14, 2015: Terror attacks strike Paris for a second time in a year, resulting in the deaths of 130 people and nearly 500 wounded.
August 26, 2015: WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward are shot dead while filming a live TV segment in Virginia.
August 21, 2015: Three American men, including two active military members, thwart a terrorist attack on a French train.
July 20, 2015: Diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba are restored, decades after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
July 11, 2015: Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escapes for a second time from his cell at a Mexican high-security prison.
June 26, 2015: The Supreme Court issues a 5-4 ruling that gay marriage is legal, legalizing same-sex unions nationwide.
June 16, 2015: New York City real estate mogul Donald Trump announces his candidacy for president with a speech at Trump Tower calling Mexican immigrants "rapists."
June 6, 2015: Joyce Mitchell, a worker at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, helps two convicted murderers escape.
June 6, 2015: American Pharoah wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse in 37 years to earn the Triple Crown of American horse racing.
May 2015: An outbreak of the Zika virus spreads to Brazil, and eventually moves its way up into Central America and the Caribbean.
March 24, 2015: Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 crashes in the Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
February 1, 2015: The New England Patriots win Super Bowl XLIX thanks to an interception with just seconds left in the game.
January 7-9, 2015: Paris is the target of multiple terror attacks that leave 17 people dead.
November 24, 2014: Hackers breach the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment and release embarrassing information against the company.
September 4, 2014: Comedian Joan Rivers dies while undergoing plastic surgery to her throat.
August 9, 2014: Unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown is shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, causing several days of riots in the community and fueling the Black Lives Matter movement.
August 19, 2014: American photojournalist James Foley is beheaded in a video recorded by ISIS, marking the beginning of the terrorist group's rise to power.
August 11, 2014: Beloved actor and comedian Robin Williams is found dead from a suicide at his home in California.
May 31, 2014: The US government agrees to release five Taliban commanders in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had gone missing from a base in Afghanistan five years prior.
May 24, 2014: Rapper Kanye West marries reality star Kim Kardashian in a lavish wedding in Florence, Italy.
May 5, 2014: TMZ obtains footage showing Beyoncé getting between her husband and sister when the two come to blows while riding in an elevator after the Met Gala.
March 23, 2014: The World Health Organization reports that there has been an outbreak of Ebola in Guinea, the start of the largest outbreak of the virus in history.
April 2014: The Flint water crisis begins as the Michigan city tries to cut costs by getting their water from the Flint River instead of getting it from Detroit.
March 25, 2014: Actress Gwyneth Paltrow announces her separation from her Coldplay frontman husband Chris Martin on her blog Goop, saying they have decided to "consciously uncouple".
March 8, 2014: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously vanishes off radar while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.
March 2014: Russia invades Ukraine and annexes the Crimea, after Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, is toppled in anti-government protests.
February 18, 2014: A 39-year-old Jimmy Fallon starts his tenure as host of "The Tonight Show".
February 2, 2014: Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman dies at the age of 46 from a drug overdose.
February 1, 2014: Dylan Farrow writes an essay describing how her father, director Woody Allen, molested her as a child. Allen was never charged and denies the allegation.
December 5, 2013: Nelson Mandela, South Africa's trailblazing first black president, dies at the age of 25.
July 22, 2013: Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, gives birth to a baby boy named Prince George, who becomes third in line to the British throne, behind his father and grandfather.
July 13, 2013: The Black Lives Matter movement begins after George Zimmerman is acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the shooting death of black teen Trayvon Martin.
July 7, 2013: Scottish tennis player Andy Murray becomes the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.
July 6, 2013: "Glee" star Cory Monteith is found dead in a Vancouver, British Columbia, hotel room after succumbing to a drug and alcohol overdose.
June 6, 2013: The Guardian and the Washington Post publish stories based on information leaked to them by government contractor Edward Snowden.
May 6, 2013: Three women who had been missing for about a decade are rescued from the Cleveland, Ohio, home of Ariel Castro.
May 16, 2013: The now-defunct news site Gawker publishes a video showing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack.
April 15, 2013: Two pressure cooker bombs explode at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 250 others.
March 13, 2013: Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is elected pope, becoming the first South American to lead the Roman Catholic Church. He assumes the name Pope Francis.
February 28, 2013: Basketball legend Dennis Rodman travels to North Korea and meets leader Kim Jong-un, becoming the first American to meet the new leader since he assumed office two years prior.
December 14, 2012: A mentally-disturbed shooter kills 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before killing himself.
November 9, 2012: Gen. David Petraeus resigns as director of the CIA after the FBI uncovers the fact that he shared classified information with his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell.
November 6, 2012: Voters in Colorado and Washington vote to legalize recreational marijuana, becoming the first states in the US to do so.
October 29, 2012: Superstorm Sandy causes widespread death and damage, especially in the Northeastern US.
October 22, 2012: After being accused of conducting an elaborate doping scheme, American cyclist Lance Armstrong is stripped of his seven Tour de France medals and banned from cycling competitions for life.
September 11, 2012: US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans are killed after a mob storms the US mission in Benghazi, Libya.
July 20, 2012: A shooter opens fire at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight," in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring dozens of others.
November 7, 2011: Michael Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection to the late singer's overdose death.
October 20, 2011: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is captured and killed by revolutionaries, bringing an end to his 42-year regime.
October 3, 2011: American Amanda Knox, 24, is freed from an Italian prison after her conviction in the 2009 murder of her British roommate is overthrown.
September 17, 2011: The Occupy Wall Street movement begins with about 1,000 people protesting in downtown Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
July 23, 2011: Grammy Award-winning singer Amy Winehouse, 27, is found dead at her home in north London.
July 22, 2011: A right-wing Christian extremist kills 77 people — most of them children — in attacks on Oslo, Norway, and the nearby island of Utoya.
July 7, 2011: Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid shutters after it was revealed that staffers hacked into the phones of prominent figures like Prince William to mine for stories.
May 14, 2011: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, is pulled off a Paris-bound flight in New York and charged with sexually assaulting a hotel maid.
May 1, 2011: President Barack Obama addresses the nation to announce the death of terrorist Osama bin Laden, after a successful Navy SEAL raid on the 9/11 mastermind's compound in Pakistan.
April 29, 2011: 3 billion people tune in to watch Britain's Prince William marry college sweetheart Kate Middleton in a ceremony at Westminster Cathedral in London
March 11, 2011: An earthquake in Japan causes the second-worst nuclear accident in history.
March 2011: Civil war breaks out in Syria after military defectors create the Free Syrian Army, to combat those loyal to President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
February 11, 2011: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns under pressure from revolutionaries, giving up the seat he had held for three decades.
January 28, 2011: "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen enters rehab, a day after the actor was rushed from his home to the hospital for abdominal and chest pains, according to CBS Los Angeles.
December 17, 2010: The suicide of a Tunisian street vendor serves as a catalyst for the Arab Spring.
December 8, 2010: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange turns himself in to British police after Swedish authorities put out a warrant for his arrest in connection to a rape accusation.
October 13, 2010: 33 miners are rescued after spending 69 days trapped in a Chilean copper mine.
June 27, 2010: The FBI arrests 10 Russian spies caught living deep undercover in the United States.
May 2, 2010: The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund sign off on a €110 million bailout of Greece, to save the EU country from default.
April 20, 2010: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico causes the biggest marine oil spill in history.
April 14, 2010: An eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano causes an ash cloud to spread across Europe, grounding flights in the region.
January 12, 2010: Hundreds of thousands of people are killed after a 11117.0-magnitude earthquake strikes the island nation of Haiti.

Link to article

Alright, this is a fairly comprehensive list of all the active launch sites on Earth as of the year 1999, in Overheaven’s alternate history timeline.
Realistically, most of these only launch satellites, and the ones that do shoot people into space are probably doing so with capsules, though the more developed countries have fleets of reusable space planes (both manned and unmanned). The overwhelming majority of launches are going to be routine unmanned, reusable rockets sending up supplies or satellites or space station construction materials, and then touching back down on the launch pad like SpaceX's BFR (we get that level of reusable launch vehicle by the mid/late 70's, rather than the late 2010’s - amazing what you can accomplish when two superpowers feel the need to put thousands of nukes in orbit, because the 1967 Outer Space Treaty never happened).
Many are run by the military or public-sector space agencies like the ESA, NASA, the Commonwealth Space Program, or Soyuzcosmos (the USSR's NASA counterpart), but I'm willing to bet that at least half (perhaps even two-thirds) of these are private-sector operations, and most non-military public-sector launch sites do private-sector flights as well. Rockets like the Sea Dragon theoretically don't really need launchpads, and while there might be launch facilities which specialize with Sea Dragon-type rockets, I think that the smaller spaceflight companies would just buy one of these rockets, strap the payload on top, and tow it out to sea near the equator for launch. And there's also air-launched sub-orbital vehicles (stuff like Virgin Galactic's White Knight), which I wager could take off from regular old airports on the backs of Boeing 747's or Antonov 124's.
Some of these are existing rocket launch sites (mostly for sounding rockets), which I've turned into full-on Cape Canaveral/Baikonur-type facilities, while others are proposed locations for launch sites, and some are just good ideas I figured would work but never appeared in our timeline.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is enough space infrastructure to serve as the basis for a smoothly-running interplanetary civilization by 1999, with the Internet still in its infancy. In Overheaven’s alternate timeline, the lack of an OST leads to a more aggressive and ambitious space race. Men on on Mars by 1976, men on Venus by 1978, and the construction of huge nuclear missile platforms in orbit by both superpowers. By the late 70’s, space industry was just getting started, and by the 80’s, the “Space Boom” was in full swing, baby. Experimental atomic research, rotating space hotels, medical and chemical research labs in orbit, space manufacturing, solar power satellites, mining near-earth asteroids, space tourism, orbital fuel depots, telecom sats, space casinos, offworld banking, and so much more. By the late 1990’s, the idea of people working and even living in space is still exciting, but it’s also pretty damn normal now.
With all these launches, plus material being extracted from Luna and near-Earth asteroids, I think it's perfectly feasible for there to be a few Stanford Toruses, and at least one O'Neill Cylinder, under construction in Earth orbit by '99. And as launch costs continue to plummet, expect the scale of humanity's ambitions to only escalate.
And these are just the launch sites on Earth. I don't even know how many orbital launch facilities there'd be by this point - huge space stations building truly-massive vessels in zero-g with all those resources we're shooting up on what I imagine is a daily or even hourly basis; ships like those, built and fueled in orbit, would undoubtedly be able to reach Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Main Belt and Jupiter with relative ease. And everything I've stated here will only continue to grow at a geometric rate as more of the Solar System's resources are harnessed, spaceflight costs continue to drop, and technology continues to improve. And we’re not talking about Overheaven’s current year, which isn’t actually 1999.
It’s 2185.
Oh, right. Here's the list:
United States of America:
Cape Kennedy Space Center (Merritt Island, Florida)
Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (Delmarva Peninsula, Virginia)
John Glenn Memorial Spaceport (Matagorda Island, Texas)
Southwestern Regional Spaceport (Roswell, New Mexico)
White Sands Launch Center (White Sands, New Mexico) Datil Launch Center (Datil, New Mexico)
Yuma Spaceport (Yuma, Arizona)
Keweenaw Spaceport (Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan)
John Bardeen Memorial Launch Center (Sheboygan, Wisconsin)
Mojave Spaceport (Mojave, California)
Vanderberg Space Center (Lompoc, California)
Oklahoma Spaceport (Burn Flats, Oklahoma)
Kodiak Launch Complex (Kodiak Island, Alaska)
Stockton Space Center (Stockton, Arizona)
Lone Star Space Center (Van Horn, Texas)
Coleman Launch Center (Sea Dragon launch facility located between Tutuila island and Manu’a island, American Samoa)
Johnston Space Center (Johnston Atoll, Pacific Ocean)
Sarigan Launch Center (Sairgan, Northern Marianas Islands)
Reagan Launch Center (Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands)
Poseidon (privately-operated mobile sea-launch platform in the Gulf of Mexico)
Ocean Odyssey Launch Complex (privately-operated mobile sea-launch platform in the Pacific Ocean)
Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics:
Baikonur Cosmodrome (Baikonur, Star City)
Tereshkova Cosmodrome (Zapovednoye, Primorsky Krai, Far Eastern SSR)
Vostochny Cosmodrome (Tsiolkovsky, Amur Oblast, Far Eastern SSR)
Okhotsk Cosmodrome (Okhotsk, Khabarovsk Krai, Far Eastern SSR)
Sarishagan Cosmodrome (Priozersk, Karaganda Oblast, Kazakh SSR)
Nyonoksa Cosmodrome (Severodvinsk, Archangelsk Oblast, Russian SSR)
Plesetsk Cosmodrome (Mirny, Archangelsk Oblast, Russian SSR)
Kapustin Yar Cosmodrome (Znamensk, Astrakhan Oblast, Russian SSR)
Isakov Cosmodrome (mobile sea-launch platform in the Indian Ocean, currently 960 miles off the coast of Sri Lanka)
European Space Agency/European Union:
Guiana Space Center (Kourou, French Guiana)
Archimedes Launch Center (Syracuse, Sicily, Italy)
Nuka Hiva Space Center (Marquises, French Polynesia)
Touamotu Space Center (Rairoa, French Polynesia)
Fort-Dauphin Space Center (Tôlanaro, Republic of Madagascar)
Borglio Space Center (offshore platform off the coast of Kenya, administered by Italy)
Koroni Launch Center (Messenia, Greece)
Salto di Quirra Spaceport (Sardinia, Italy)
Cuxhaven Launch Center (Cuxhaven, Germany)
Ile du Levant Launch Center (Iles d’Hyeres, France)
El Arenosillo Spaceport (Mazagon, Spain)
Svalbard Space Center (Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Norway) (northern-most spaceport in the world)
Andøya Space Center (Andøya, Norway)
Esrange Launch Center (Kiruna, Sweden)
Oberth-Barre Launch Center (Bangoli, Orientale Province, Zaire)
OTRAG Launch Center (North Sheba, Katanga Province, Zaire) (privately-operated spaceport, under German/EU jurisdiction)
People’s Republic of China:
Dongfeng Aerospace City (Ejin Banner, Inner Mongolia)
Hotan Aerospace City (Hotan, Xinjiang)
Xichang Launch Center (Liangshan, Sichuan)
Wenchang Launch Center (Wenchang, Hainan)
Taiyaun Launch Center (Xinzhou, Shanxi)
Taiwan (Republic of China):
Sanxiantai Launch Center (Sanxiantai, Taitung)
Haiqian Launch Center (Manzhou, Pingtung)
Republic of Bulgaria:
Smrikite Cosmodrome (Varna Province)
Republic of Hong Kong and Macau:
Stanley Ho Space Center (Tai Chau Island, New Territories) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Islamic Republic of Pakistan:
Sonmiani Launch Center (Las Bela, Balochistan)
Tilla Launch Center (Jhelum, Punjab)
Federative Republic of Brazil:
Barreira do Inferno Launch Center (Parnamirim, Rio Grande do Norte)
Praia do Cassino Launch Center (Rio Grande do Sul)
Alcântara Spaceport (Alcântara, Maranhão)
Belém Spaceport (Vigia, Para)
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:
Sutherland Spaceport (Caithness and Sutherland, Highland, Scotland) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
South Uist Space Center (South Uist, Outer Hebrides, Scotland) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Newquay Space Center (Newquay, Cornwall, England) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Ascension Launch Center (Unicorn Point, Ascension Island, South Atlantic) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Diego Garcia Launch Center (Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Federal Republic of Romania:
Costinești Space Center (Constanta County)
Republic of Colombia:
Soledad Launch Center (Caquetá Department) (jointly-operated with the United States)
Commonwealth of Nations/Commonwealth Space Program:
Mount Kenya Space Center (Nyeri County, Republic of Kenya)
Kilimanjaro Space Center (Kilimanjaro Region, United Republic of Tanzania)
Gan Launch Center (Gan, Addu Atoll, Maldives) (jointly-operated by the Commonwealth and India)
Commonwealth of Australia:
Woomera Space Center (Woomera, South Australia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Darwin Space Center (Darwin, Northern Territory) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Carnarvon Space Center (Carnarvon, Western Australia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Manus Space Center (Manus Island, Admiralty Islands, Papua New Guinea) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Weipa Launch Center (Mission River, Cape York, Queensland) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Christmas Island Space Center (South Point, Christmas Island) (jointly-operated by Australia and Japan)
Spaceport Valhalla (offshore privately-run launch platform off the coast of East Timor)
State of Japan:
Tanegashima Space Center (Tanegashima Island, Kagoshima)
Uchinoura Space Center (Kimotsuki, Kagoshima)
Akita Satellite Launch Center (Akita, Tohoku)
Obachi Satellite Launch Center (Rokkasho, Aomori)
Okinotorishima Space Center (Okinotori Reef) (a very large launch platform built atop a coral reef, mostly so Tokyo can thumb their nose at an EEZ dispute with China and Taiwan, increasingly growing into a small city in the middle of the Pacific Ocean)
Ryori Space Center (Iwate, Tohoku)
Watatsumi Launch Platform (very large mobile sea-launch platform in the south Pacific Ocean, currently 100 miles off the coast of Baker Island, USA)
Asada Goryu Space Center (Wuvulu Island, Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea)
New Zealand:
Birdling’s Flat Launch Center (Canterbury, South Island) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Mahia Launch Center (Hawke’s Bay, North Island) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia:
Morava Spaceport (Lađevci, Republic of Šumadija)
Imperial State of Iran:
Qom Space Center (Qom Province)
Emamshahr Space Center (Semnan Province)
Semnan Spaceport (Semnan Province)
Republic of Algeria:
Hammaguir Space Center (Hammaguir, Abadla District) (originally built by the French, abandoned in the 60’s, brought back online by the Algerian government in the 80’s)
West Indies Federation:
Barbados Space Center (Kitridge Point, Barbados) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
St. Margaret Space Center (St. Margaret, Trinidad & Tobago) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Mabaruma Space Center (Mabaruma, Barima-Waini, Guyana) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
State of Israel:
Albert Einstein Space Center (Hasna, Sinai Peninsula, Israel) (recently launched a Palestinian-designed satellite into orbit as a sign of goodwill)
Socialist Republic of Vietnam:
Phạm Tuân Launch Center (Hon Khaoi Island) (jointly operated with USSR)
Malaysia:
Riau Space Center (Padang, Riau Island)
Ahmad Shah Space Center (Larapan Island, Sabah)
Republic of India:
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala)
Satish Dhawan Space Centre (Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh)
Abdul Kalam Space Centre (Bhubaneswar, Odisha)
Canada:
Churchill Space Center (Churchill, Manitoba) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Primrose Lake Launch Center (Cold Lake, Alberta) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Maritime Launch Center (Canso, Nova Scotia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Cape Breton Spaceport (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Grand Turk Space Center (Grand Turk Island, Turks and Caicos, Canada) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Dominican Republic:
Las Terrenas Space Center (Las Terrenas, Samaná Province) (jointly-operated with the United States)
People’s Democratic Republic of South Yemen:
Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi Launch Center (offshore platform off the coast of Socotra) (jointly-operated with the USSR)
Republic of Ecuador:
Puerto Quito Launch Center (Pichincha Province) (jointly-operated with the United States)
Republic of Poland:
Łeba-Rąbka Spaceport (Pomeranian Voivodeship)
Blizna Spaceport (Podkarpackie Voivodeship)
Republic of the Philippines:
Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone (Clark Field, Metro Manilla)
Lambajon Launch Center (Lambajon, Mindanao) (built with Japanese investment in the 1970’s, recently came under joint Japanese-Filipino administration)
Republic of Cuba:
Juventud Spaceport (Cayo San Juan, Isla de la Juventud, Cuba) (operated jointly with the USSR)
Republic of Chile:
Isla San Felix Launch Center (Isla San Felix)
Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya:
Libyan People’s Space City (Sabha, Fezzan)
Korean Federation:
Tonghae Spaceport (Musudan, North Hamyong) (originally built by the DPRK in the 80’s)
Anhueng Spaceport (Hoengseong County, Gangwon Province)
Naro Space Center (Goheung County, South Jeolla Province)
Iraqi Republic:
Babylon Space City (Al-Anbar region) (jointly operated by the Iraqi and Syrian governments; operates Tammouz rockets for manned launches and Project Babylon super-guns for satellites)
United Mexican States:
Sierra de Jaurez Launch Center (Sierra de Juarez, Baja California)
Alcubierre Spaceport (Laguna Tamiahua, Veracruz)
Puerto Bravo Launch Center (Puerto Bravo, Quintana Roo)
Republic of Singapore:
Changi Spaceport (Changi, Singapore)
Republic of Zaire:
Mbandaka Spaceport (Bamanya, Equateur Province)
Republic of Indonesia:
Motorai Launch Center (Motorai Island, North Maluku)
Biak Launch Center (Biak Island, West Papua)
Enggano Launch Center (Enggano Island, Bengkulu)
Republic of Argentina:
CELPA (El Chamical, La Roja Province)
Felix Aguilar Launch Center (Pampa de Achala, Cordoba Province)
San Martin Launch Center (Mar Chiquita, Buenos Aires Province)
Marambio Launch Center (Marambio Base, Antarctica) (southern-most spaceport in the world)
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:
King Khalid Spaceport (Tabuk, Tabuk Province)
Al Haddar Spaceport (Al Haddar, Riyadh Province)
Apartheid South Africa:
Denel Overberg Launch Centre (Agulhas, Cape Province)
Walvis Bay Launch Centre (Swakopmund, Southwest Africa)
Aquarius Mobile Launch Platform (mobile sea-launch platform in the Atlantic Ocean, 894 miles off the coast of Liberia)
Jan Smuts Launch Centre (St. Lucia, Natal)

The town's name is Gillam in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Know what I m talking aboot?
it is a town of 1000ish people, nearest walmart or McDonald is 4 hours of gravel road away. There is some significance to this small town though. The province uses 99% green energy, and 80% of that energy is generated by hydro stations around this town. There is hospital, Canadian legion, post office, railway station, airport, firehall, gym, casino. However there is nothing (ingress related things) in the town. I just started this game, so I am too new to create/request anything.

CBC Goes Full Retard Publishing Stories About "Racism" and "Race"
Nov 2, 2018
Hate messages show up on University of Manitoba campus
http://archive.is/xx6d3
5 reasons why everyone should be talking about The Hate U Give
http://archive.fo/NzpPl
'It's draining': Winnipeg man hopes for more awareness after racist run-in
http://archive.fo/9ti3U
Nov 3, 2018
Why a Toronto-area school board can't force out a trustee accused of racism and xenophobia
http://archive.is/RE60G
Nov 4, 2018
How right-wing populism is returning to its fascist roots
http://archive.is/sJOb0
Nov 5, 2018
Drake blocked from Vancouver's Parq Casino, claims it was 'profiling'
http://archive.is/AWLmu
Nov 6, 2018
Parents renew calls for controversial York school board trustee-elect to resign
http://archive.fo/NR8TH
Nov 7, 2018
'We shouldn't be forced to move to certain areas of the classroom': U of M Indigenous students
http://archive.is/8rbAn
Nov 8, 2018
Q&A: Lori Wilkinson explains why 'It's OK to be white' posters are not OK
http://archive.is/i6iJL
Nov 9, 2018
'The entire company is toxic': Allegations of abuse, harassment at Stella's chain surface on social media
http://archive.is/InSeY
Nov 10, 2018
'Really toxic': Abuse allegations continue to dog Winnipeg restaurant chain Stella's Cafe
http://archive.is/Vvgv0
Nov 13, 2018
Meet Raven Wilkinson, the black ballerina who blazed a trail long before shoes came in brown and bronze
http://archive.is/IO46X
Nov 14, 2018
Grieving Inuit families blame racism of health-care workers for deaths of loved ones
http://archive.is/XD7tA
Nov 15, 2018
Federal government issues permanent postal ban on hate speech publication
http://archive.is/GS5Wg
Pat Lorje resigns from Montgomery community association board, citing 'racist attitudes'
http://archive.is/1MZ3g
Toronto anti-carding activist stopped by police in Vancouver
http://archive.fo/6cQec
Nov 17, 2018
Multiculturalism 'makes our province a better place,' says Sask. award recipient
http://archive.is/aQsB3
Nov 19, 2018
University of New Brunswick nursing school should have mandatory course in Indigenous health, says instructor
http://archive.is/BGHiP
Nov 20, 2018
'It is our story': Why a contest inspired by Viola Desmond was cut short
http://archive.fo/L5xWF
Nov 21, 2018
Kelowna Sikh leader urges people to speak up about racism after gurdwara hit by graffiti
http://archive.is/rNC6J
Police officer denied promotion because of race, hearing told
http://archive.is/IZknG
Nov 22, 2018
TRC heard concerns about coerced sterilization of Indigenous women, says Murray Sinclair
http://archive.is/BfuqQ
Nov 23, 2018
Quebecers among Canadians most likely to believe racism is decreasing
http://archive.is/SAx0b
Alberta government 'censored' Indigenous book, undermining reconciliation in schools, author says
http://archive.fo/1AZjr
Nov 26, 2018
Nearly two-thirds of Quebecers support public-sector ban on religious symbols, poll finds
http://archive.fo/d6VrL
Nov 29, 2018
Hate crimes surge in southwestern Ontario, Statistics Canada says
http://archive.is/crN4B
Nov 30, 2018
Peewee hockey game in Neepawa turns ugly as fans hurl racist taunts at First Nations team
http://archive.is/G0lo9
Edmonton hotel accused of racial discrimination against 4 young men
http://archive.is/KA8ln
Windsor health centre provides 'culturally safe' space for Indigenous people
http://archive.is/LeTFN
Dec 01, 2018
'We have let you down': Stella's owners post video, take out full-page apology ad after harassment complaints
http://archive.is/CjUUD

[Note to this sub: Here are two gambling stories involving Haralabos Voulgaris. Two things you should know. 1) I originally wrote this for a completely different, anonymous audience and not for all the wonderful "Shoe Fitness Architects", "Pizza Delivery Engineers", Overnight Security Enforcers, and DMV Workers that I've gotten the pleasure of meeting on here during my time on /billsimmons. Instead, it will seem like I'm talking to a room full of strangers, and for the first time. So if you read something that you've already seen me say on this sub, you know the reason. I also sound “different” in this.
2) It's long. You've been warned, I don't want to hear shit about it being so damn long. Think of this as a throwback to the Page 2 days, when you knew a guy was going to take a huge, extended shit because he just printed out Simmons' latest article and ran into the bathroom. You know, the “glory days”.
If you read this on Friday, you can save this for your afternoon work shit. Read it on your phone though, because it's got a short YouTube clip in it that helps tell the story.
If you read it over the weekend, I suggest smoking a bowl beforehand, especially to our Canadian friends up North. Doesn't have to be Top Shelf, just something to buzz you going in.
That's it. Enjoy.
The recent news of the Dallas Mavericks hiring Haralabos Voulgaris as Director of Quantitative Research and Development recently blew my mind. I knew it was Bob's goal to be an NBA GM, and this job isn't quite on the GM level, but I still can't believe he's made it onto a real NBA organization. I still think of him mostly from his early 2000's poker and sports betting days, and I never imagined he'd be able to hold down a real job someday. I didn't think anyone from the gambling world ever could.
I was heavily into sports gambling and poker at the same time as Bob was ascending as a sports gambling force, from the late 80's until well into the 2000's. I didn't know Haralabos well, yet I heard about or saw him all the time. This pretty much describes all relationships in gambling to be honest. But I did make sure to hear all the stories about Haralabos back then, because they always made the gossip rounds and were usually funny.
I'm here to share two of Haralabos' famous gambling stories, to give you a little insight into the man. If you are an Old School gambler, you've already heard them. But they are now 15 years old, and I couldn't find a good telling already on the Internet, so new people might get a kick out of these. Sources are at the bottom of this post.
People need to understand that, back then (early 2000s), Bob was best known for two things: betting the NBA, and being a smart ass trash talker at the poker tables. Bob was a world class needler that people highly resented because he had “Fuck You” kinds of money and he sure lorded that fact over everybody. He found everyone in the gambling world incredibly stupid compared to himself, and wasn't afraid to let people know it. I guess that's not much different than his Twitter in 2018, except he's learned to be more polite about it.
It was amusing being in a poker room with Bob in it, unless you were the focus of his remarks. He did not have any boundaries and was merciless, and really went after people “Micheal Jordan style” with the ferocity of his put-downs. Asked to describe him, I'd say 98% of players back then would call him an “arrogant dickhead” (including me at that time), while 2% would say “really sharp guy who doesn't tolerate fools” (including me now). We would all agree that he could be hilarious.
With that set-up, here are two Haralabos Voulgaris gambling stories that let's you know what he was like back in the early 2000's.
Story #1
My favorite Haralabob story, which long time 2+2ers have already heard about and whose legend has grown over the years, is the infamous Freddy Deeb story. If you know it, you are already nodding your head. But hopefully it's new to you. It's a classic.
Freddy Deeb was a rich business man from Lebanon, but a lot of people thought he was Egyptian (close enough for poker players). “Fast Freddy” was a decent if unspectacular poker player who pre-dated the poker boom. So Freddy was a legit and well known regular even before TV got involved with the game, and parlayed that “real, genuine poker player” label into appearances on TV when the poker boom happened. He had strong credibility.
Freddy is probably most famously remembered for being accused of “Going South” by Johnny Chan on an episode of High Stakes Poker. Freddy handled that accusation in typical Freddy fashion – making a big deal about this small joke insulting his integrity, aggressively confronting everyone about it and challenging them to heads-up poker matches to prove his manhood. The dude could be a hothead. (“Going South”, which was more commonly called “rat-holing”, is when a player sneaks high denomination chips off the table undetected after winning a big pot, so he has no possibility of losing them back in a later big hand. It's a unethical way to play “hit and run” if you win big quickly, without the “running” part being as obvious as picking up and leaving immediately.)
The two things you needed to know about Freddy: 1) He was short. I mean really short, like 5'1” or less. Not to play Freud too much, but you can probably guess that the reason he spent all his time in poker rooms was because of this physical limitation. Poker attracted the social rejects like no other activity in the 1990's, and welcomed the physically and mentally defective in droves. It was a haven almost exclusively for nerds and losers, before TV made it cool for everyone to play No Limit Texas Hold'em, The Cadillac of Gambling Games (so hip!).
2) Stemming from #1, Freddy could have a short temper. If you are jumping straight into a “Napoleon Complex” accusation for Freddy, well, in this case you're the heavy favorite. Freddy was a quiet, nice guy for 90% of the time he played. But Freddy was quick to act like a gangster you didn't want to fuck with if you ever gave him the chance, with that persistent shoulder chip that will never go away. Everyone let him play gangster without comment as long as he still had a bankroll to gamble with.
Here is a YouTube video that illustrates both points perfectly. Watch the whole thing to the end for maximum comedy – it's fucking hilarious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqwQiIy1b48
Here's Freddy acting like a super tough guy, and – in the moment - you can believe it too. Until the camera pulls back and shows the other players at the table, and then you get a height perspective of the whole scene. It's unreal funny at that point. Gus Hansen sitting next to him looks like Yao Ming by comparison.
So when this first HBob story happens, poker is just about to really take off. My guess is that it was around 2003-4, so the hype around poker was growing fast but still not close to the peak yet. The first Season of the World Poker Tour (WPT) had already aired, and it was a cultural phenomenon. Poker players were speculating already that WPT tournament champions were going to be as famous as top professional athletes, and with the same kind of ultra-lucrative sponsorship opportunities and endorsement deals. A very common topic at the table was how much getting to the final table at a televised WPT event was worth in fame, above and beyond any of the listed prize money. Perhaps a few million? It was a crazy time, and being on TV was all anyone cared about back then. Seems a bit silly now.
Freddy had been on TV a few times with some respectable runs in some bigger tournaments. The WPT and ESPN featured him in a few “flavor of the game” clips during their early poker broadcasts, and that seemed like a pretty big deal, especially to Freddy. TV Poker was grooming narratives and trying to create presentable, relatable stars in the poker world and weren't above adding in some artificial flavor to an otherwise unremarkable cast of characters.
Being a legit long time poker player was enough for Freddy to get some screen time – the TV producers could take it from there. I think the narrative was along the lines of how anyone – all ages, ethnicity, shapes and sizes could find a home in the poker world, and Freddy exemplified all that. It all went directly to Freddy's head, and he was not alone during this time.
Anyway, the story goes like this. Haralabos is playing in a very juicy high stakes poker game in a California casino, most likely the Commerce. The game was already full with 9 players, which is the max in most California rooms.
Haralabos himself was very new to poker at this time. He dabbled previously, but only started playing for big stakes in the past year or two because of the huge influx of new poker players, who watched the WPT on television and flooded into casinos, chasing riches. Thus there was easy money to be made. Before then, of course, he was focused on his NBA gambling. He was very near the height of his powers as an NBA sports bettor, and known pretty damn well in the sports betting world, if not the general public yet. Far more people in poker knew about Bob than he knew about them, though. He was just starting to get serious about playing poker. Bob knew about some of the bigger poker names he gambled with betting sports together in the past, but knew almost none of the newly (and artificially) created TV “poker stars” that ESPN / WPT had chosen to promote.
So Freddy walks into the Commerce one day and sees the high stakes poker table, and eyes the line up. Freddy knows this “Main Game” is incredibly juicy, and wants in – immediately. He calls the floorman over and insists they create an extra space at the table for him and for the game to be played 10-handed. 10-handed was actually the common number of players in Las Vegas poker tables at the time, and Freddy was usually based there. Freddy is sort of 'big timing' the floorman, reminding him how much he's played there over the years, how much rake he's given that casino, and how all these new poker players want to play with someone like himself, a big-shot, old school, now famous poker player.
There is nothing that poker players like more than poker room drama (except maybe comped food), so this commotion has drawn the attention of every table within earshot. Everyone near by was focusing on the Main Game with Haralabos in it. Drawn from many accounts, here is a recreation of what happened:
Freddy (accented, slightly broken English)(to Floorman): Johnny, there's no board. Just put me in big blind right now and we can play with ten.
Floorman Johnny: Table's not big enough for ten, Freddy. This isn't Vegas. Our players will object. Everyone wants their space.
Freddy: Just ask then. If there are objections then Freddy will wait. But no one will object! C'mon Johnny, how much action I give to you? Freddy is “action player”. Everyone wants to play with Freddy. They see me, they know “That's Freddy” and they want to play.
[Yes, Freddy was talking about himself in the Third Person. What can I say?]
Floorman Johnny (reluctantly, to Main Game): Guys, Freddy wants to sit and play 10-handed. There is no board an he doesn't want to wait around for nothing. Any objections?
Haralabos (immediately): I object. Who the fuck is this guy? [To Freddy] Buddy, you're not special. What makes you think you control this game? If more people come, then you can start a “Must-Move” game and play in that. Otherwise, wait your fucking turn like everyone else. Ok, buddy? [To Floorman, incredulous] What the fuck?
Freddy (heated at Haralabos): Listen, buddy. Everyone here know Freddy. Floorman. Dealer. Players. All know Freddy, love Freddy. Who the fuck are you? In Vegas, Freddy wants a game, the manager come running to help Freddy! They bring in best table to start new game for Freddy! They get best dealer on break to come deal! They bring in new chips, new cards for Freddy! They bring special chair for Freddy to sit in!
Haralabos: Oh yeah, Freddy? Is it a high chair?
A thunderclap of uproarious laughter rang out from all who were listening in, perhaps fifty people or more, all rubberneckers from other tables drawn in by the drama. There was no denying the spontaneity, no denying the reason, and certainly no denying the focus of who the laughter was directed at. Fast Freddy, all five feet zero inches of him, with the hair-trigger anger and never lacking words, was truly stunned and humiliated into silence. His eyes became squinted and his face was stuck in a wince of pain, his whole head turning as red as a stubborn, two-week old pimple that just wouldn't pop. He rocked back and forth as if recovering from a physical punch, not knowing what to do as a second, smaller wave of laughter began because it was just that funny, and now the story was being instantly re-told.
The few that were present and could actually feel sympathy quickly stifled their laughter, feeling the guilt of knowing the guy just got hit in his most sensitive area in front of a very large audience, and was truly wounded. They were hoping Freddy would finally say something, anything, to show that he wasn't completely crushed inside, that he wasn't as hurt as he seemed. Instead, Freddy walked away silently, his decades of “bluster armor” built protecting his sensitivity about his height laid on the ground, smashed.
Souls are crushed all the time in poker rooms. You think you've seen it all, and you just grow immune. But this one stood out, as almost a warning. You just don't want to get into a verbal war with Haralabob.
There is an addendum to this story.
A year or so later, and strictly by chance, Freddy and Haralabos found themselves at the same table during a big tournament. Neither man had forgotten their previous encounter (how could they?). By this time, poker was being covered in real-time by a fleet of new poker reporters and journalists, and, by all accounts, Haralabos was riding Freddy hard that day, with verbal put-downs and jokes at Freddy's expense non-stop. Freddy tried to play it cool, knowing he was no verbal match for HBob.
Until this happened. There was a Random Guy sitting directly on Freddy's left hand side who was new, didn't know anyone at the table (or their past history with each other) and who politely told Freddy this (recreation):
Random Guy (to Freddy): Hey man. You need to protect your cards better. I can see your hole cards flash sometimes when you look. I saw you had paint last hand. You need to learn to peek without flashing.
Freddy: Buddy, do you know who I am? I'm playing this game since before you were born! I win more money this year than you will have in your whole life! They ask me to write new poker book, that is kind of player I am! Buddy, I'm writing now, next time I see you I bring you a signed copy of my poker book!
Haralabos: Next time you should bring a phone book instead so you can sit on it and see your cards better.
Well, Freddy was playing it cool with HBob until then, but that last comment instantly set him off. Again, by the written accounts of the poker reporters live blogging the event, Freddy shot straight up out of his chair (though you probably couldn't tell...) and challenged HBob to a fist fight, screaming expletives at him and demanding a duel. Haralabob just sat in his chair laughing, saying he didn't want to go outside and fight Freddy because he didn't want to get arrested for child abuse.
Famous poker player Daniel Negreanu witnessed this incident live, and blogged about it at the time. I remember that he thought that Freddy would be a decent favorite in a fight between Freddy and Haralabos. But I have my doubts about that. Negreanu disliked Haralobob personally, like many poker players who ever faced him at that time, because HBob could be so vicious. So he was biased in his fight assessment, IMHO.
HBob was not a figher at all - more of a jester than a knight – but I thought he could always just stiff-arm Freddy by the forehead and then Freddy would be left with that cartoon 'swinging of the arms trying to reach him' thing while HBob could just jab him with his other arm. I would have made Haralabos the -200 favorite.
Story #2
This happened in the early 2000's, during Season 3 of the World Poker Tour, just a year or so after Story #1.
Haralabos had played in one of the WPT's big televised tournaments and made the Final Table. Not only that, but he ultimately came in Second Place, meaning he was going to get a LOT of TV time, which, again, most players thought was worth more than the actual prize money. Poker by now was white hot in America and was bringing so many people instant overnight fame. Players were resorting to obnoxious table antics and hyper displays of “personality” just to get a few seconds of screen time. Everyone was trying to create a “brand”.
Not to belabor the point, but before television made poker cool and respectable, it was filled with 95% scumbags and degenerates with almost no white-collar, working professionals. But TV poker didn't want to portray that sordid image. In the very early days, the WPT actually had a “dress code” for appearing on the televised Final Table, where a sports jacket and collared shirts were required and would be provided for you if you didn't own them yourself (in other words, for everyone).
Even the long time “Old School” gamblers were cleaned up and presented as daring adventurers instead of leather-assed angle-shooters they (we) really were. Known broke degenerates like T.J. Cloutier was turned into worshiped, heroic figures instantly, romanticized by television producers as sharp equity traders who practiced at the table instead of on Wall Street. The reality was that guys like Cloutier were hanging around poker rooms mostly to shamelessly beg recent winners for a buy-in, or even just a meal.
Under this ethos of “cleaning up poker players' images”, players were allowed to manufacture any kind of image they wanted if they were going to be on the WPT TV show. Producers for the WPT would ask each finalist for a biography, but did absolutely no fact or background checking at all intentionally, mostly out of fear of what they might find if they actually did do so. So with all that in mind, here is the official bio for Haralabos that appeared on the WPT website before his televised event, almost certainly written by HBob himself:
"Haralabos Voulgaris is a 29-year-old professional sports bettor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. This poker tyro brings a lot more to his first WPT final table than meets the eye. He is a playwright, holds a degree in philosophy, and his goals reach far beyond the green felt. His plans for the next 5 years include learning to play the piano, to have one of his plays performed on Broadway, and to win a WPT title."
I'm not sure how much of this was an inside joke, how much was just the pressure to appear white-collar in order to attract advertisers (remember, poker players were all thinking about future endorsement deals at this time), and how much of this was HBob's ego run amuck.
BUT COME ON! “Playwright”? Has Haralabos ever gone to a play yet, even in 2018? But that wasn't enough; he wanted to have one of his many, many written plays performed on Broadway very soon, because that's how dedicated he was to this art form! Just remember, this is the guy who widely known throughout the poker world for using his mastery of language to mercilessly torture midgets and other unfortunates at the poker table. Not exactly Tennessee Williams. Add in the piano lessons and the PhD in philosophy (philosophy!), and the fact that the WPT didn't bat an eye in putting this up as his bio, and the unintentional comedy is off the charts.
Haralabos claimed to friends at the time that it was mostly a joke, but as we will now see, he seemed to really care about this false image.
As you probably well know, there is a gap between when the WPT Final Table was played, and when the show based off of it is actually aired. By the time Haralabos' episode was about to air, he was staying as a guest in the house of a former poker pro named Paul Phillips, who only the most dedicated and old players will remember. (Paul Phillips won 2 WPT titles in the very early seasons, took the prize money, and pretty much disappeared from poker, going on to live a “normal” life. One of the few gambling success stories, IMHO).
Well, Paul was a practical joker himself, and he had found a way to hack his DVR and change the description of recorded programs, including Bob's WPT episode. Knowing that Haralabos was coming back soon to watch it, Paul changed the description on the DVR to fuck with him. The original show description was something like this:
“Six new players vie for the title of Champion of the LA Poker Classic Tournament. Players include movie star John Smith, astronaut Mark Hunt, playwright Haralabos Volgaris, undercover international spy Chris Jenkins, the crown prince of Wakanda Jerome Jones, and the inventor of the Internet Joe “Man Tits” Mande.“
Obviously the other names and titles were made up by me, but you get the picture. Anyway, Paul made one small adjustment, knowing Haralabos would see it:
“Six new players vie for the title of Champion of the LA Poker Classic Tournament. Players include movie star John Smith, astronaut Mark Hunt, uptight playwright Haralabos Volgaris, undercover international spy Chris Jenkins, the crown prince of Wakanda Jerome Jones, and the inventor of the Internet Joe “Man Tits” Mande.“
Paul then waited for Haralabos to return so they could watch the episode together, leaving up the modified description of “uptight playwright” on the TV and making sure HBob was in the room alone for a few minutes before starting the show, so he had no choice but to stare at the phony description.
Bob noticed it immediately. According to Paul, HBob started to get really worried, thinking that the show was going to portray him in a terrible light and edit him to look dumb and foolish, just because of that one word “uptight” in the description. Before even starting the show, HBob was already making excuses, telling Paul that he forgot they kept his microphone on at all times, and he said some critical things about the WPT's production crew, and now they were getting their revenge by calling him uptight. He kept bringing up ways he might have acted uptight during the Final Table and was pre-rationalizing them for Paul, who was enjoying it all.
This went on for the first 15 minutes or so of the show, with Haralabos worrying and moaning non-stop about being called “uptight” and wondering how they were going to edit him to look that way, until Paul finally let him off the hook. According to Paul, Haralabos didn't believe it was a practical joke and kept worrying and griping longer, until he saw for himself that it was just a standard WPT show with no unfair editing involved.
I'm not going to put too much on Haralabos for being so worried about his portrayal. Players really did believe that a good edit was the difference between a lucrative endorsement deal with Budweiser or Nike and getting nothing. The sky seemed to be the limit. BUT... the notion that Bob was just playing an inside joke and didn't really care about being known as a “playwright, piano player, and philosopher” didn't quite match up with his defensive and concerned attitude that day.
Sources:
Source for Story #1: This is a very famous poker story that was talked about amoung players live and on 2+2 (the dominant, high-traffic poker forum back then and perhaps now) a lot when it happened. You can find snippets and references on twoplustwo.com. I'm sure other long time and knowledgeable players will verify hearing a version of this story before.
An account of it was given by Haralabos himself on the podcast “Big Poker Sundays” which he used to co-host with Scott Huff, but has long since disappeared. It was a part of Poker Road Radio, which was run by Barry Greenstein's asshole son before closing. As this story is now close to 15 years old and poker media is on life support, many previous accounts from blogs and recording are now gone, and thus a lot of it had to be reconstructed from memory. Part of the reason I'm re-telling it is because it was gradually being lost in time, and that is a motive to re-tell it now, for a new generation.
Source for Story #2: I got the exact WPT description of Bob's bio from the 2+2 Archive (http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5504109&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1). The story of the altered DVR description and Paul Phillips came from the memory of Paul's old blog on LiveJournal (“extempore”), which has long been deleted, and from my own correspondence with Paul Phillips at the time (we were pretty good “online friends” before the invention of Social Media. Anyone remember r.g.p. on Usenet?). Again, unfortunately memory had to play a large role.
I by no means want to pretend Haralabos and I were close. I knew about him and tracked him more than most poker players due to my sports betting background, but Bob was just one of a hundred different and strange characters in the gambling world that you'd recognize daily, none of whom you'd want to spend a lot of time with. We had some mutual friends, that's about it.
Both stories were written under the Geneva Convention rules, which explicitly states that all gambling stories worldwide may contain up to 15% of exaggerations in order to make the story more entertaining or dramatic and still be called “truthful”. Like all good gambling stories should be told. But the core elements are as faithful a retelling as I could make it, including the WPT description, and the key dialogue by Bob that was quoted the most at that time. It's the dates and locations I'm least sure about.

CBC Goes Full Retard Publishing Stories About "Racism" and "Race"
Nov 2, 2018
Hate messages show up on University of Manitoba campus
http://archive.is/xx6d3
5 reasons why everyone should be talking about The Hate U Give
http://archive.fo/NzpPl
'It's draining': Winnipeg man hopes for more awareness after racist run-in
http://archive.fo/9ti3U
Nov 3, 2018
Why a Toronto-area school board can't force out a trustee accused of racism and xenophobia
http://archive.is/RE60G
Nov 4, 2018
How right-wing populism is returning to its fascist roots
http://archive.is/sJOb0
Nov 5, 2018
Drake blocked from Vancouver's Parq Casino, claims it was 'profiling'
http://archive.is/AWLmu
Nov 6, 2018
Parents renew calls for controversial York school board trustee-elect to resign
http://archive.fo/NR8TH
Nov 7, 2018
'We shouldn't be forced to move to certain areas of the classroom': U of M Indigenous students
http://archive.is/8rbAn
Nov 8, 2018
Q&A: Lori Wilkinson explains why 'It's OK to be white' posters are not OK
http://archive.is/i6iJL
Nov 9, 2018
'The entire company is toxic': Allegations of abuse, harassment at Stella's chain surface on social media
http://archive.is/InSeY
Nov 10, 2018
'Really toxic': Abuse allegations continue to dog Winnipeg restaurant chain Stella's Cafe
http://archive.is/Vvgv0
Nov 13, 2018
Meet Raven Wilkinson, the black ballerina who blazed a trail long before shoes came in brown and bronze
http://archive.is/IO46X
Nov 14, 2018
Grieving Inuit families blame racism of health-care workers for deaths of loved ones
http://archive.is/XD7tA
Nov 15, 2018
Federal government issues permanent postal ban on hate speech publication
http://archive.is/GS5Wg
Pat Lorje resigns from Montgomery community association board, citing 'racist attitudes'
http://archive.is/1MZ3g
Toronto anti-carding activist stopped by police in Vancouver
http://archive.fo/6cQec
Nov 17, 2018
Multiculturalism 'makes our province a better place,' says Sask. award recipient http://archive.is/aQsB3
Nov 19, 2018
University of New Brunswick nursing school should have mandatory course in Indigenous health, says instructor
http://archive.is/BGHiP
Nov 20, 2018
'It is our story': Why a contest inspired by Viola Desmond was cut short
http://archive.fo/L5xWF
Nov 21, 2018
Kelowna Sikh leader urges people to speak up about racism after gurdwara hit by graffiti
http://archive.is/rNC6J
Police officer denied promotion because of race, hearing told
http://archive.is/IZknG
Nov 22, 2018
TRC heard concerns about coerced sterilization of Indigenous women, says Murray Sinclair
http://archive.is/BfuqQ
Nov 23, 2018
Quebecers among Canadians most likely to believe racism is decreasing
http://archive.is/SAx0b
Alberta government 'censored' Indigenous book, undermining reconciliation in schools, author says
http://archive.fo/1AZjr
Nov 26, 2018
Nearly two-thirds of Quebecers support public-sector ban on religious symbols, poll finds
http://archive.fo/d6VrL
Nov 29, 2018
Hate crimes surge in southwestern Ontario, Statistics Canada says
http://archive.is/crN4B

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