December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 10 days remaining until the end of the year. This is a frequent day for the winter solstice to occur in the northern hemisphere and summer solstice to occur in the southern hemisphere; it is also the beginning of astronomical winter in the northern hemisphere.

Events[link]

• 69 – The Roman Senate declares Vespasian as Roman emperor, the last in the Year of Four Emperors.
• 1140 – Conrad III of Germany besieged Weinsberg.
• 1598 – Battle of Curalaba: The revolting Mapuche, led by cacique Pelentaru, inflict a major defeat on Spanish troops in southern Chile.
• 1620 – Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
• 1826 – American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declare their independence, starting the Fredonian Rebellion.
• 1832 – Egyptian–Ottoman War: Egyptian forces decisively defeat Ottoman troops at the Battle of Konya.
• 1844 – The Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England, starting the Cooperative movement.
• 1861 – Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
• 1872 – Challenger expedition: HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth.
• 1879 – World première of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.
• 1883 – The first Permanent Force cavalry and infantry regiments of the Canadian Army are formed: The Royal Canadian Dragoons and The Royal Canadian Regiment.
• 1907 – The Chilean Army commits a massacre of at least 2,000 striking saltpeter miners in in Iquique, Chile.
• 1910 – An underground explosion at the Hulton Bank Colliery No. 3 Pit in Over Hulton, Westhoughton, England, kills 344 miners.
• 1913 – Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.
• 1919 – American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to Russia.
• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theater.
• 1941 – World War II: A formal treaty of alliance between Thailand and Japan is signed in the presence of the Emerald Buddha in Wat Phra Kaew.
• 1946 – An 8.1 M_w earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Nankaidō, Japan, kill over 1,300 people and destroy over 38,000 homes.
• 1962 – Rondane National Park is established as Norway's first national park.
• 1967 – Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, after living for 18 days after the transplant.
• 1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
• 1969 – The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
• 1973 – The Geneva Conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict opens.
• 1979 – Lancaster House Agreement: An independence agreement for Rhodesia is signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and S.C. Mundawarara.
• 1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.
• 1992 – A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, killing 56 people.
• 1994 – Mexican volcano Popocatepetl, dormant for 47 years, erupts gases and ash.
• 1995 – The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
• 1999 – The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives that ETA intended to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid.
• 2004 – Iraq War: A suicide bomber killed 22 at the forward operating base next to the main U.S. military airfield at Mosul, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers.

Births[link]

• 1118 – Thomas Becket, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1170)
• 1401 – Tommaso Masaccio, Italian painter (d. 1428)
• 1596 – Petru Movilă, Moldovan religious figure (d. 1646)
• 1603 – Roger Williams, English theologian and founder of the American colony Providence Plantations (d. 1684)
• 1672 – Benjamin Schmolck, German Lutheran composer of hymns (d. 1737)
• 1682 – Calico Jack Rackham, English pirate (d. 1720)
• 1714 – John Bradstreet, Canadian-born soldier (d. 1774)
• 1728 – Hermann Raupach, German composer (d. 1778)
• 1778 – Anders Sandøe Ørsted, Danish politician (d. 1860)
• 1795 – Leopold von Ranke, German historian (d. 1886)
• 1795 – John Russell, English parson and dog breeder (d. 1883)
• 1804 – Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1881)
• 1805 – Thomas Graham, British chemist (d. 1869)
• 1811 – Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1882)
• 1815 – Thomas Couture, French painter and teacher (d. 1879)
• 1818 – Amalia of Oldenburg, Queen of Greece (d. 1875)
• 1832 – John H. Ketcham, American politician (d. 1906)
• 1840 – Namık Kemal, Turkish nationalist poet (d. 1888)
• 1843 – Thomas Bracken, Irish-born New Zealand poet (d. 1898)
• 1850 – Zdeněk Fibich, Bohemian composer (d. 1900)
• 1850 – William Wallace Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln (d. 1862)
• 1851 – Thomas Chipman McRae, American politician (d. 1929)
• 1859 – Gustave Kahn, French poet (d. 1936)
• 1866 – Maud Gonne, Irish activist (d. 1953)
• 1872 – Sidney Ainsworth, British actor (d. 1922)
• 1872 – Don Lorenzo Perosi, Italian composer (d. 1956)
• 1872 – Albert Payson Terhune, American author (d. 1942)
• 1873 – Blagoje Bersa, Croatian composer (d. 1934)
• 1876 – Jack Lang, Australian politician (d. 1975)
• 1878 – Jan Łukasiewicz, Polish philosopher and mathematician (d. 1956)
• 1885 – Frank Patrick, Canadian hockey player (d. 1960)
• 1889 – Sewall Wright, American biologist (d. 1988)
• 1890 – Hermann Joseph Muller, American geneticist and Nobel laureate (d. 1967)
• 1891 – John William McCormack, American politician (d. 1980)
• 1892 – Amy Key Clarke, English mystical poet (d. 1980)
• 1892 – Walter Hagen, American golfer (d. 1969)
• 1892 – Rebecca West, British writer (d. 1983)
• 1896 – Leroy Robertson, American composer (d. 1971)
• 1905 – Anthony Powell, British author (d. 2000)
• 1908 – Herbert Hutner, American banker and attorney (d. 2008)
• 1909 – Seicho Matsumoto, Japanese mystery writer and journalist (d. 1992)
• 1911 – Josh Gibson, American baseball player (d. 1947)
• 1913 – Arnold Friberg, American illustrator (d. 2010)
• 1914 – Frank Fenner, Australian microbiologist (d. 2010)
• 1914 – Ivan Generalić, Austro-Hungarian-born Croatian painter (d. 1992)
• 1915 – Joe Mantell, American actor (d. 2010)
• 1915 – Werner von Trapp, member of the Trapp Family Singers (d. 2007)
• 1917 – Heinrich Böll, German writer and Nobel laureate (d. 1985)
• 1917 – Sophie Masloff, American politician
• 1918 – Donald Regan, American civil servant (d. 2003)
• 1918 – Kurt Waldheim, Austrian politician and diplomat (d. 2007)
• 1920 – Alicia Alonso, Cuban ballerina
• 1920 – Bob Bindig, American cartoonist (d. 2006)
• 1920 – Jean Gascon, Canadian actor (d. 1988)
• 1921 – Robert Lipshutz, American attorney and counsel to the Carter Adminisrtation (d. 2010)
• 1921 – John Severin, American comics artist
• 1922 – Itubwa Amram, Nauruan pastor and politician (d. 1989)
• 1922 – Paul Winchell, American ventriloquist (d. 2005)
• 1923 – Intizar Hussain, Urdu writer and columnist
• 1924 – Rita Reys, Dutch jazzsinger
• 1926 – Arnošt Lustig, Czech author
• 1926 – Joe Paterno, American football coach (d. 2012)
• 1928 – Ed Nelson, American actor
• 1931 – David Baker, American symphonic jazz composer
• 1932 – Edward Hoagland, American essayist
• 1935 – John G. Avildsen, American film director
• 1935 – Lorenzo Bandini, Italian racecar driver (d. 1967)
• 1935 – Yusuf Bey, American activist (d. 2003)
• 1935 – Phil Donahue, American talk show host
• 1935 – Edward Schreyer, Canadian politician, Premier of Manitoba
• 1937 – Jane Fonda, American actress
• 1937 – Donald F. Munson, American politician
• 1938 – Larry Bryggman, American actor
• 1938 – Frank Moorhouse, Australian author
• 1939 – Lloyd Axworthy, Canadian politician
• 1940 – Arvi Lind, Finnish news broadcaster
• 1940 – Ray Hildebrand, American singer (Paul & Paula)
• 1940 – Frank Zappa, American musician (d. 1993)
• 1942 – Hu Jintao, CPC General Secretary, Chinese president
• 1942 – Reinhard Mey, German singer
• 1942 – Carla Thomas, American singer
• 1943 – André Arthur. Canadian radio host
• 1943 – Albert Lee, English guitarist
• 1943 – Jack Nance, American actor (d. 1996)
• 1944 – Bill Atkinson, English footballer
• 1944 – Michael Tilson Thomas, American conductor
• 1944 – Zheng Xiaoyu, Chinese bureaucrat (d. 2007)
• 1946 – Christopher Keene, American conductor (d. 1995)
• 1946 – Carl Wilson, American musician (The Beach Boys) (d. 1998)
• 1947 – Bryan Hamilton, Northern Irish footballer
• 1947 – Paco de Lucía, Spanish musician
• 1948 – Samuel L. Jackson, American actor
• 1948 – Dave Kingman, American baseball player
• 1948 – Willi Resetarits, Austrian musician
• 1949 – Thomas Sankara, Burkinabé military figure (d. 1987)
• 1949 – Nikolaos Sifounakis, Greek politician
• 1950 – Jeffrey Katzenberg, American film producer
• 1950 – Lillebjørn Nilsen, Norwegian singer-songwriter
• 1951 – Nick Gilder, English musician (Sweeney Todd)
• 1952 – Joaquín Andújar, Dominican baseball player
• 1953 – Betty Wright, American singer
• 1954 – Chris Evert, American tennis player
• 1955 – Jane Kaczmarek, American actress
• 1955 – Kazuyuki Sekiguchi, Japanese musician
• 1957 – Tom Henke, American baseball player
• 1957 – Rolf Kanies, German actor
• 1957 – Ray Romano, Italian-American comedian
• 1959 – Florence Griffith Joyner, American sprinter (d. 1998)
• 1960 – Louis Demetrius Alvanis, British pianist
• 1960 – Roger McDowell, American baseball player
• 1960 – Andy Van Slyke, American baseball player
• 1961 – Francis Ng, Hong Kong actor
• 1961 – Ryuji Sasai, Japanese video game composer
• 1961 – Del Wilkes, American pro wrestler
• 1963 – Govinda Ahuja, Indian actor and politician
• 1964 – Rob Kelly, English football manager
• 1964 – Fabiana Udenio, Argentine actress
• 1964 – Joe Kocur, Canadian hockey player
• 1965 – Andy Dick, American actor and comedian
• 1965 – Anke Engelke, German comedian
• 1965 – Stuart Mitchell, Scottish Composer
• 1966 – Adam Schefter, American sports journalist
• 1966 – Kiefer Sutherland, British-born Canadian actor
• 1966 – Karri Turner, American actress
• 1967 – Ervin Johnson, American basketball player
• 1967 – Fritz Karl, Austrian actor
• 1967 – Terry Mills, American basketball player
• 1967 – Mikheil Saakashvili, Soviet-born President of Georgia
• 1969 – Julie Delpy, French actress
• 1969 – Jack Noseworthy, American actor
• 1969 – Mihails Zemļinskis, Latvian footballer
• 1971 – Matthieu Chedid, French musician
• 1971 – Fenton Keogh, Australian celebrity chef
• 1971 – Brett Scallions, American singer (Fuel)
• 1972 – Gloria De Piero, English journalist
• 1972 – Latroy Hawkins, American baseball player
• 1972 – Dustin Hermanson, American baseball player
• 1972 – Claudia Poll, Costa Rican swimmer
• 1972 – Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Indian politician
• 1972 – Erwin Schrott, Uruguayan opera singer
• 1973 – Irakli Alasania, Georgian politician and diplomat
• 1973 – Mike Alstott, American football player
• 1973 – Karmen Stavec, German-born Slovenian singer
• 1974 – Karrie Webb, Australian golfer
• 1975 – Paloma Herrera, Argentine ballet dancer
• 1976 – Mirela Manjani, Greek javelin thrower
• 1976 – Lukas Rossi, Canadian rock singer (Rock Star Supernova)
• 1977 – Toby Rand, Australian singer (Juke Kartel)
• 1978 – Emiliano Brembilla, Italian swimmer
• 1978 – Mike Vitar, American actor
• 1979 – Tuva Novotny, Swedish actress and singer
• 1980 – Royce Ring, American baseball player
• 1980 – Michele Di Piedi, Italian footballer
• 1981 – Frankie Abernathy, American actress (d. 2007)
• 1981 – Lynda Thomas, Mexican singer
• 1981 – Cristian Zaccardo, Italian football player
• 1982 – Mike Gansey, American basketball player
• 1982 – Erica Hayden, American journalist and radio personality
• 1982 – Philip Humber, American baseball player
• 1982 – Iljo Keisse, Belgian cyclist
• 1982 – Tom Payne, British actor
• 1984 – Darren Potter, Irish football player
• 1985 – James Stewart Jr., American motorcycle racer
• 1985 – Tom Sturridge, British actor
• 1987 – Valerie Concepcion, Filipino actress
• 1987 – Brad Howard, Australian rules footballer
• 1988 – Alexa Goddard, British R&B singer
• 1988 – Yasmin, British DJ and Singer
• 1989 – Mark Ingram, Jr., American football player
• 1989 – Tamannaah, Indian actress

Deaths[link]

• 72 – Thomas the Apostle
• 882 – Hincmar, French bishop (b. 806)
• 1295 – Marguerite Berenger of Provence, wife of Louis IX of France (b. c.1221)
• 1308 – Henry I of Hesse (b. 1244)
• 1375 – Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian writer (b. 1313)
• 1504 – Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild, German archbishop and elector (b. 1442)
• 1549 – Marguerite of Navarre, wife of Henry II of Navarre (b. 1492)
• 1579 – Vicente Masip, Spanish painter
• 1597 – Petrus Canisius, Dutch Jesuit (b. 1521)
• 1799 – Philip Affleck, British Admiral and First Lord of the Admiralty (b. 1726)
• 1807 – John Newton, English cleric and hymnist (b. 1725)
• 1824 – James Parkinson, English physician and paleontologist (b. 1755)
• 1869 – Friedrich Ernst Scheller, German jurist and politician (b. 1791)
• 1873 – Francis Garnier, French explorer (b. 1839)
• 1889 – Friedrich August von Quenstedt, German geologist (b. 1809)
• 1900 – Roger Wolcott, American politician (b. 1847)
• 1920 – Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, Somalian nationalist leader (b. 1856)
• 1933 – Knud Rasmussen, Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist (b. 1879)
• 1935 – Kurt Tucholsky, German journalist and satirist (b. 1890)
• 1937 – Frank B. Kellogg, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1856)
• 1940 – F. Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (b. 1896)
• 1945 – George Smith Patton Jr., American military commander (b. 1885)
• 1957 – Eric Coates, English-born American composer (b. 1886)
• 1958 – Lion Feuchtwanger, German writer (b. 1884)
• 1959 – Rosanjin, Japanese calligrapher, restaurateur and ceramicist (b. 1883)
• 1964 – Carl Van Vechten, American writer and photographer (b. 1880)
• 1963 – Jack Hobbs, English cricketer (b. 1882)
• 1965 – Claude Champagne, Canadian composer (b. 1891)
• 1967 – Stuart Erwin, American actor (b. 1903)
• 1968 – Vittorio Pozzo, Italian football coach (b. 1886)
• 1974 – James Henry Govier, British artist (b. 1910)
• 1974 – Richard Long, American actor (b. 1927)
• 1982 – Hafeez Jullundhri, Pakistani writer, poet composer of the National Anthem of Pakistan (b. 1900)
• 1983 – Paul de Man, Belgian-born literary critic (b. 1919)
• 1986 – Bill Simpson, Scottish actor (b. 1931)
• 1987 – John Spence, American musician (No Doubt) (b. 1969)
• 1988 – Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch ornithologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1907)
• 1989 – Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Nigerian-born British photographer (b.1955)
• 1990 – Clarence Johnson, American aeronautical engineer (b. 1910)
• 1992 – Albert King, American blues musician (b. 1924)
• 1992 – Nathan Milstein, Ukrainian violinist (b. 1903)
• 1997 – Amie Comeaux, American country music singer (b. 1976)
• 1998 – Roger Avon, Durham actor (b. 1914)
• 1998 – Karl Denver, Scottish singer (b. 1931)
• 1998 – Ernst-Günther Schenck, German physician (b. 1904)
• 2001 – Dick Schaap, American sports journalist (b. 1934)
• 2003 – Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Spanish businessman (b. 1924)
• 2004 – Autar Singh Paintal, Indian medical scientist (b. 1925)
• 2005 – Elrod Hendricks, American baseball player and coach (b. 1940)
• 2006 – Scobie Breasley, Australian jockey (b. 1914)
• 2006 – Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan (b. 1940)
• 2007 – Ken Hendricks, American businessman (b. 1941)
• 2009 – Edwin G. Krebs, American biochemist (b. 1918)
• 2010 – Enzo Bearzot, Italian football player and manager (b. 1927)

Holidays and observances[link]

• Christian Feast Day:
  • O Oriens
  • Petrus Canisius
  • Thomas the apostle (pre-1970 Roman Calendar)

• Divalia, in honour of Angerona, (Roman Empire)
• Earliest date for the winter solstice:
  • Earliest date for Yule in the northern hemisphere, and Midsummer in the southern hemisphere. (Neopagan Wheel of the Year)
  • Sanghamitta Day
  • Ziemassvētki (ancient Latvia)
• Forefathers' Day (Plymouth, Massachusetts)
• The first day of Pancha Ganapati, celebrated until December 25 (India)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: December 21

• BBC: On This Day
• The New York Times: On This Day
• On This Day in Canada

David Icke
Icke in 2008
Born	David Vaughan Icke (1952-04-29) 29 April 1952 (age 60) Leicester, England
Residence	Ryde, Isle of Wight
Occupation	Writer and speaker
Years active	Since 1990
Known for	Football, television sports, books on global politics
Political party	Formerly the Green Party
Website
www.davidicke.com Icke's YouTube channel.

David Vaughan Icke (pronounced /aɪk/, or IKE, born 29 April 1952) is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he is the author of 19 books and has attracted a global following that cuts across the political spectrum. His 533-page The Biggest Secret (1999) has been called "the Rosetta Stone for conspiracy junkies."^[1]

Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when in 1990 a psychic told him he was a healer who had been placed on Earth for a purpose, and that the spirit world was going to pass messages to him so he could educate others. In March 1991 he held a press conference to announce that he was a "Son of the Godhead" – a phrase he said later the media had misunderstood – and the following month told the BBC's Terry Wogan show that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He said the show changed his life, turning him from a respected household name into someone who was laughed at whenever he appeared in public.^[2]

He continued nevertheless to develop his ideas, and in four books published over seven years—The Robots' Rebellion (1994), And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001)—set out a moral and political worldview that combined New-Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of totalitarian trends in the modern world. At the heart of his theories lies the idea that a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the Babylonian Brotherhood controls humanity, and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie.^[3]

Michael Barkun has described Icke's position as "New Age conspiracism," writing that he is the most fluent of the conspiracist genre. Richard Kahn and Tyson Lewis argue that the reptilian hypothesis may simply be Swiftian satire, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative with which to question what they see around them.^[4]

Personal life and career[link]

Early life and education[link]

Icke was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Icke, née Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. Icke was the middle child; there was a brother seven years older, and another seven years younger. Beric had wanted to be a doctor, but his family had no money, so he joined the Royal Air Force instead. He was awarded a British Empire Medal for gallantry in May 1943 after helping to save the crew of an aircraft that had crashed into the Chipping Warden air base in Oxfordshire. Along with a Squadron Leader, he ran into the burning aircraft, without protective clothing, and saved the life of a crew member who was trapped inside.^[5]

After the war, Beric got a job in the Gents clock factory, and the family lived in a slum terraced house on Lead Street, near Wharf Street in the centre of Leicester. When Icke was three, they moved to a housing estate known as the Goodwood, one of the 1950s council estates the post-war Labour government built. "To say we were skint," he wrote in 1993, "is like saying it is a little chilly at the North Pole." He remembers having to hide under a window or chair when the council man came to collect the rent—after knocking, the rent man would walk round the house peering through the windows to see whether anyone was at home. His mother never explained that it was about the rent; she just told him to hide, and Icke writes that he still gets a fright whenever he hears a knock on the door.^[6]

He was always a loner, spending hours playing with toy steam trains, and preferring to cross the street rather than speak to anyone. He attended Whitehall Infant School, then Whitehall Junior School, where he spent most of his time feeling nervous and shy, often to the point of almost fainting during the morning assembly and having to leave before he passed out. The family doctor suggested a referral to a child psychologist, but his father put his foot down.^[7]

Football and first marriage[link]

He made no effort at school and failed at practically everything, but when he was nine, he was chosen for the junior school's football team. It was the first time he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as his way out of poverty. He played in goal, which he writes suited the loner in him and gave him a sense of living on the edge between hero and villain.^[7]

After failing his 11-plus exam in 1963, he was sent to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern, rather than the local grammar school, where he was given a trial for the Leicester Boys Under-Fourteen team. He decided to leave school at 15 after being talent-spotted by Coventry City, who signed him up in 1967 as their youth team's goalkeeper. He also played for Oxford United's reserve team and Northampton Town, on loan from Coventry. Rheumatoid arthritis in his left knee, which later spread to the right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists, and hands, stopped him from making a career out of football. Despite often being in agony during training, he managed to play part-time for Hereford United – including in the first team when they were in the Fourth Division of the English Football League, and when they were promoted to Division Three – before the pain in his joints forced him to retire in 1973 at the age of 21.^[9]

He met his first wife, Linda Atherton, in May 1971 at a dance at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa; she was working as a van driver for a garage in Leamington. Shortly after they met, Icke had another one of the huge rows he had started having with his father—always a domineering man, his father was upset that Icke's arthritis was interfering with his football career—so he packed his bags and left home. He moved into a tiny bedsit and worked in a local travel agency during the day, travelling to Hereford twice a week in the evenings to play football. He and Linda were married on September 30 that year, four months after they'd met. A daughter was born in March 1975, followed by a son in December 1981, and another son in November 1992. Though the couple divorced in 2001, they remain good friends; she runs his publishing arm, David Icke Books, as well as producing some of his DVDs.^[10]

Sports presenter[link]

The loss of his position with Hereford meant that he and his wife had to sell their home, and for several weeks they lived apart, each moving in with their parents, but he found a job in 1973 as a reporter with the weekly Leicester Advertiser, through a contact who was a sports editor at the Daily Mail. He moved on to the Leicester News Agency, and through them did some programmes for BBC Radio Leicester, then worked his way up through the Loughborough Monitor, the Leicester Mercury, and BRMB Radio in Birmingham.^[11]

He worked for two months in Saudi Arabia in 1975, helping them run their national football team; it was intended to be a longer-term position, but he missed his wife and new daughter so much that he decided not to return after his first holiday back to the UK. He got his job back at BRMB, then applied successfully to work for Midlands Today at the BBC's Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham, and in 1981 moved on to become a sports presenter for the BBC's national programme, Newsnight. The following year he achieved his ambition when offered a job co-hosting Grandstand, at the time the BBC's flagship national sports programme.^[12]

He moved in 1982 to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, somewhere he had always wanted to live. He appeared on the first edition of British television's first national breakfast show, the BBC's Breakfast Time, on 17 January 1983, presenting the sports news for them until 1985. He also published his first book that year, It's a tough game, son!, about how to break into football.^[13]

He continued to work for BBC Sport until 1990, often on Grandstand and snooker programmes, and also at the 1988 Summer Olympics, but despite his professional success – he was by then a household name – a career in television began to lose its appeal for him. He wrote in Tales from the Time Loop (2003) that he was beginning to find television workers insincere, shallow, and vicious, with rare exceptions.^[14] His contract with the BBC was terminated in August 1990 thanks to a political row, when he refused to pay his Community Charge, a controversial local tax introduced that year in England by Margaret Thatcher. He did end up paying it, but his announcement that he was willing to go to jail rather than pay prompted the BBC, by charter an impartial public-service broadcaster, to distance itself from him.^[15]

Green Party, meeting with psychic healer[link]

Icke had begun to flirt with fringe medicine and New Age philosophies during the 1980s, in an effort to find relief from his arthritis, and this encouraged his interest in Green politics.^[16] He wrote his second book in 1989, It Doesn't Have To Be Like This, an outline of his views on the environment, and became involved with the Green Party from 1988 to 1991, rising to become one of their four Principal Speakers, a position the party had created in lieu of a leader. The Observer called him "the Greens' Tony Blair."^[17] He was regularly seen at high-profile events. He was invited in 1989 to debate animal rights during a televised debate at the Royal Institute of Great Britain, alongside Tom Regan, Mary Warnock, and Germaine Greer, and in September 1990 his name appeared on advertisements for a children's charity along with Audrey Hepburn, Woody Allen, and other celebrities.^[18]

He wrote that 1989 was a time of considerable personal despair for him, and it was during this period that he began to feel a presence around him.^[19] In March 1990 he had a sudden feeling while standing in newsagent's that a magnetic force was pulling his feet to the ground, and said he heard a voice tell him to look at a particular section of books. One of the books there was by Betty Shine, a psychic healer in Brighton. He decided to visit her to ask for help with his arthritis.^[20]

Icke said he had a mystical experience near this pre-Inca burial site in Peru.

Shine told him during their third meeting that she had a message for him from Wang Yee Lee, a being who she said looked like a Chinese mandarin and had Socrates standing next to him.^[21] The message was that Icke had been sent to heal the Earth. He would become famous, but would face opposition. The spirit world was going to pass ideas to him, which he would speak about to others, sometimes not understanding the words himself. She said he would write five books in three years; that in 20 years there would be a different kind of flying machine, where we could go wherever we wanted and time would have no meaning; and there would be earthquakes in unusual places, because the inner earth was being destabilized by having oil taken from the seabed.^[22]

As part of the process of making sense of this, he decided in February 1991 to visit the pre-Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno, Peru, and while there felt drawn to a large mound of earth, at the top of which lay a circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle, he again felt his feet pulled to the earth as if by a magnet, and an urge to outstretch his arms. His feet started vibrating, and his head felt as though a drill was passing through it. Two thoughts entered his mind: that people will be talking about this in 100 years, and then, "it will be over when you feel the rain." He said his body started shaking as though plugged into an electrical socket and new ideas began to pour into him. Then it started raining, and the experience ended as suddenly as it had begun. He described it later as the "kundalini"—a term from Indian yoga describing a libidinal force that lies coiled at the base of the spine—exploding up through his spine, activating his brain and his chakras, or energy centres, triggering a higher level of consciousness.^[23]

He returned to England and began to write a book about the experience, Truth Vibrations, which was published in May that year. At a Green Party conference in Wolverhampton on 20 March 1991, before the book appeared, he resigned from the party, telling them he was about to be at the centre of "tremendous and increasing controversy," and winning a standing ovation from them after the announcement.^[24]

Turquoise period[link]

What followed was what Icke calls his "turquoise period." He writes that he had been channelling for some time, and had received a message through automatic writing that he was a "Son of the Godhead," interpreting "Godhead" as the "Infinite Mind."^[25] He now began to wear only turquoise, which he saw as a conduit for positive energy. He had met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic living in Calgary, Alberta, in August 1990, and after he returned from Peru, they began a relationship, which led to the birth of a daughter in December 1991. At one point, Shaw moved in with him and his wife. Shaw changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's wife became known as Michaela, which she said was an aspect of the Archangel Michael. They became known in the press as the "turquoise triangle."^[17]

In March 1991, a week after he resigned from the Green Party – and shortly after his father died – the three of them held a press conference to announce that Icke was a son of the Godhead. He said the world would end in 1997, preceded by a number of disasters, including a severe hurricane around the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, eruptions in Cuba, disruption in China, a hurricane in Derry, and an earthquake on the Isle of Arran. Los Angeles would become an island, New Zealand would disappear, and the cliffs of Kent would be under water by Christmas. He told reporters the information was being given to them by voices and automatic writing.^[26]

He wrote in 1993 that he had felt out of control during the press conference. He heard his voice predict the end of the world, and was appalled. "I was speaking the words, but all the time I could hear the voice of the brakes in the background saying, 'David, what the hell are you saying?'" His predictions were splashed all over the next day's front pages, to his great dismay.^[27]

Terry Wogan interview[link]

The headlines attracted an invitation to appear on the BBC's prime-time Terry Wogan show, Wogan, on 29 April 1991. When asked if he was claiming to be the son of God, he did not disagree, and amid laughter from the studio audience, he repeated that Britain would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.^[28] He also talked about politics and the environment:

When you survey the world today ... when a child dies in this world of preventable disease every two seconds, when the economic system of this world must destroy the Earth simply for that system to survive; when you see all the wars, and when you see all the pain, and when you see all the suffering, is it a force of love and wisdom and tolerance that is in control of this planet?^[30]

The interview proved devastating for him. The BBC was criticized for allowing it to go ahead, Des Christy in The Guardian calling it a "media crucifixion."^[31] Wogan interviewed Icke again in 2006, acknowledging that his comments during the first interview had been "a bit sharp."^[28] Icke disappeared from public life for a time, unable to walk down the street without people mocking him. His children were followed to school by journalists and ridiculed by schoolmates, and his wife would open the back door to get the washing in only to find a camera crew filming her.^[32] He told Jon Ronson in 2001:

One of my very greatest fears as a child was being ridiculed in public. And there it was coming true. As a television presenter, I'd been respected. People come up to you in the street and shake your hand and talk to you in a respectful way. And suddenly, overnight, this was transformed into "Icke's a nutter." I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.^[29]

Writing and lecturing[link]

Icke said the interview had been the making of him in the end, that the laughter had set him free. He wrote that every bridge back to his past was ablaze, giving him the courage to develop his ideas without caring what anyone thought of him.^[33] He continued to write, turning himself into a prolific and popular author and speaker, and in 1995 set up his own publisher, Bridge of Love Publications, later called David Icke Books.^[34] He met his second wife, Pamela Leigh Richards, in Jamaica in 1997. He and Linda divorced in 2001, though they remain the best of friends, and she is involved in the management of his publishing business. He and Pamela married in 2001 and separated in 2008.^[35]

Icke addressed the Oxford Union in 2008.

Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has produced a consolidation of all conspiracy theories into one project with unlimited explanatory power, his work cutting across class lines and political divisions.^[36] By 2006 he had lectured in 25 countries, his lectures were attracting audiences of several thousand, his books had been translated into eight languages, and his website was getting 600,000 hits a week. The Biggest Secret went through six reprintings between 1999 and 2006, and Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster (2002) became a top-five seller in South Africa.^[34]

He has become known in particular for his lengthy lectures, sometimes speaking for up to eight hours, then selling DVDs of the talks produced by his ex-wife, Linda Atherton. In February 2008 he was invited to address the Oxford Union, the University of Oxford's debating society. His book tour for Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2010) encompassed lectures in Australia, Croatia, the Netherlands, and the United States, and ends in October 2012 with a talk at London's Wembley Arena, tickets ranging from ₤35 to ₤55. During the tour, he received a standing ovation in November 2011 in New York after an eight-hour lecture to a 2,000-strong crowd at the Nokia Theater in Times Square.^[37]

He stood for parliament in the UK in July 2008 as "Big Brother—The Big Picture" in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, coming 12th with 110 votes and losing his deposit. He explained that he stood because, "if we don't face this now we are going to have some serious explaining to do when we are asked by our children and grandchildren what we were doing when the global fascist state was installed. 'I was watching EastEnders, dear' will not be good enough."^[38]

Key ideas[link]

Icke combines metaphysical discussion about the nature of the universe and consciousness with conspiracy theories about public figures being satanic paedophiles, and how apparently random events are attempts to control humanity. He argued in The Biggest Secret that human beings originated in a breeding program run by a race of reptilians called Anunnaki from the Draco constellation, and that what we call reality is just a holographic experience; the only reality is the realm of the Absolute. He believes in a collective consciousness that has intentionality; in reincarnation; in other possible worlds that exist alongside ours on other frequencies; and in acquired characteristics, arguing that our experiences change our DNA by downloading new information and overwriting the software. We are also able to attract experiences to ourselves by means of good and bad thoughts.^[39]

Global Elite[link]

Icke argues that humanity was created by a network of secret societies run by an ancient race of interbreeding bloodlines from the Middle and Near East, originally extraterrestrial. Icke calls them the "Babylonian Brotherhood." The Brotherhood is mostly male. Their children are raised from an early age to understand the mission; those who fail to understand it are pushed aside. The spread of the reptilian bloodline encompasses what Norman Simms calls the odd and ill-matched, extending to 43 American presidents, three British and two Canadian prime ministers, various Sumerian kings and Egyptian pharaohs, and a smattering of celebrities such as Bob Hope. Key Brotherhood bloodlines are the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, various European royal and aristocratic families, the establishment families of the Eastern United States, and the British House of Windsor—Icke identified the Queen Mother in 2001 as "seriously reptilian."^[40]

The Illuminati, Round Table, Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations, are all Brotherhood created and controlled, as are the media, military, CIA, Mossad, science, religion, and the Internet, with witting or unwitting support from the London School of Economics.^[41] At the apex of the Brotherhood stands the "Global Elite," identified throughout history as the Illuminati, and at the top of the Global Elite stand the "Prison Wardens." The goal of the Brotherhood—their "Great Work of Ages"—is world domination and a micro-chipped population.^[40]

Reptoid hypothesis[link]

Icke introduced the reptoid hypothesis in The Biggest Secret (1999), which identified the Brotherhood as descendents of reptilians from the constellation Draco, who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. He argues that the reptilians are the race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, Enûma Eliš.^[42] According to Barkun, Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is not new, though he has done more than most to expand it.^[43]

The Draco constellation from Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, 1690. Icke's "reptoid hypothesis" posits that humanity is ruled by descendents of reptilians from Draco.^[44]

Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has taken his "ancient astronaut" narrative from the Israeli-American writer, Zecharia Sitchin, who argued—for example in Divine Encounters (1995)—that the Anunnaki had come to Earth for its precious metals. Icke argues that they came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, the reptilians can process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human form.^[45] They use human fear, guilt, and aggression as energy. "Thus we have the encouragement of wars," he wrote in 1999, "human genocide, the mass slaughter of animals, sexual perversions which create highly charged negative energy, and black magic ritual and sacrifice which takes place on a scale that will stagger those who have not studied the subject."^[46] Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism.^[47]

Icke writes that the Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines chosen for political reasons, arguing that they are the Watchers, the fallen angels, or "Grigori," who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha. Their first reptilian-human hybrid, possibly Adam, was created 200,000–300,000 years ago. There was a second breeding program 30,000 years ago, and a third 7,000 years ago. It is the half-bloods of the third breeding program who today control the world, more Anunnaki than human, he writes. They have a powerful, hypnotic stare, the origin of the phrase to "give someone the evil eye," and their hybrid DNA allows them to shapeshift when they consume human blood.^[48]

In Children of the Matrix (2001), he added that the Anunnaki bred with another extraterrestrial race called the "Nordics," who had blond hair and blue eyes, to produce a race of human slave masters, the Aryans. The Aryans retain many reptilian traits, including cold-blooded attitudes, a desire for top-down control, and an obsession with ritual, lending them a tendency toward fascism, rationalism, and racism. Lewis and Kahn write that, with the Nordic hypothesis, Icke is mirroring standard claims by the far right that the Aryan bloodline has ruled the Earth throughout history.^[49]

Dimensions[link]

The reptilians not only come from another planet, but are also from another dimension, the lower level of the fourth dimension, the one nearest the physical world. Icke writes that the universe consists of an infinite number of frequencies or dimensions that share the same space, just like television and radio frequencies. Some people can tune their consciousness to other wavelengths, which is what psychic power consists of, and it is from one of these other dimensions that the Anunnaki are controlling this world—though just as fourth-dimensional reptilians control us, they are controlled, in turn, by a fifth dimension. The lower level of the fourth dimension is what others call the "lower astral dimension." Icke argued that it is where demons live, the entities Satanists summon during their rituals. They are, in fact, summoning the reptilians.^[50] Barkun argues that the introduction of different dimensions allows Icke to skip awkward questions about which part of the universe the reptilians come from, and how they got here.^[51]

Problem-reaction-solution[link]

In Tales From The Time Loop (2003), Icke argues that most organized religions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are Illuminati creations designed to divide and conquer the human race through endless conflicts, as are racial, ethnic, and sexual divisions. He cites the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 as examples of events organized by the Global Elite.^[52] The incidents allow the Elite to respond in whatever way they intended to act in the first place, a concept Icke calls "order out of chaos," or "problem-reaction-solution". He writes that there are few, if any, public events that are not engineered, or at least used, by the Brotherhood:^[17]

Image by Neil Hague from Icke's Infinite Love is the Only Truth (2005), showing the Brotherhood, or "Red Dresses." This image depicts George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II as members of the Brotherhood.

You want to introduce something you know the people won't like. ... So you first create a PROBLEM, a rising crime rate, more violence, a terrorist bomb ... You make sure someone else is blamed for this problem ... So you create a "patsy," as they call them in America, a Timothy McVeigh or a Lee Harvey Oswald. ... This brings us to stage two, the REACTION from the people—"This can't go on; what are THEY going to do about it?" ... This allows THEM to then openly offer the SOLUTION to the problems they have created ..."^[53]

Red Dresses[link]

In Infinite Love is the Only Truth (2005), Icke introduces the idea of "reptilian software." He says that there are three kinds of people. The highest level of the Brotherhood are the "Red Dresses." These are "software people," elsewhere called "reptilian software," or "constructs of mind." They lack consciousness and free will, and their human bodies are holographic veils.^[54]

A second group, the so-called "sheeple"—the vast majority of humanity—have what Icke calls "back seat consciousness." They are conscious, but they do whatever they are told and are the main source of energy for the Brotherhood. They include the "repeaters," the people in positions of influence who simply repeat what other people have told them. Doctors repeat what they are told in medical school and by drug companies, teachers repeat what they learned at teacher training college, and journalists are the greatest repeaters of all. The third group, by far the smallest, are those who see through the illusion; they are people like Neo from the film, The Matrix. They are usually dubbed dangerous or mad. The "Red Dress" genetic lines keep obsessively interbreeding to make sure their bloodlines are not weakened by the second or third levels of consciousness, because consciousness can rewrite the software.^[54]

Moon Matrix[link]

The Moon Matrix is introduced in Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2010), in which he writes that the Earth and the collective human mind are manipulated from the Moon, a spacecraft and inter-dimensional, inter-density portal controlled by the reptilians. The Moon Matrix is a broadcast from that spacecraft to the "human body-computer," specifically to the left hemisphere of the brain, which gives us our sense of reality. He writes: "We are living in a dreamworld within a dreamworld—a Matrix within the virtual-reality universe—and it is being broadcast from the Moon." Unless people force themselves to become fully conscious, their minds are the Moon's mind, an idea further explored in his Remember Who You Are: Remember 'Where' You Are and Where You 'Come' From (2012).^[55]

Reception[link]

Protests[link]

In The Robots' Rebellion (1994), Icke introduced the idea that the Global Elite's plan for world domination was laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax published in Russia in 1903, which supposedly presented a plan by the Jewish people to take over the world.^[56] According to Mark Honigsbaum, Icke refers to it 25 times in the Robot's Rebellion, calling it the "Illuminati protocols."^[57]

In his 2001 documentary about Icke, Jon Ronson cited this cartoon, "Rothschild" (1898), by Charles Léandre, arguing that Jews have long been depicted as lizard-like creatures out to control the world.^[58]

The Protocols portrays the Jewish people as "cackling villains from a Saturday matinee," as Jon Ronson put it in his documentary about Icke, David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews (2001).^[56] It was published in English in 1920 by The Dearborn Independent, Henry Ford's newspaper, becoming mixed up with conspiracy theories about anti-Christian Illuminati, international financiers, and the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking dynasty. After it was exposed that year as a hoax by The Times of London, Michael Barkun writes that it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s.^[56] Barkun argues that Icke's reference to it is the first of a number of instances of him moving dangerously close to antisemitism.^[59]