An hour after the Armistice, you feel warlike all over again
Finnish Civil War 1917-18
Russian Civil War 1918-24
Arabian Civil War 1919-26
Irish War of Independence 1919-21
Baltic Wars 1919-20
Russo-Polish War 1920
Greek-Turkish War 1920-23
Morrocan Uprising 1921-27
Irish Civil War 1921-23
Nicaraguan Civil War 1925-32
Chinese Civil War I 1926-28
Java 1926-27
Sino-Japanese War I 1931-32
Chaco War 1932-35
Chinese Civil War II 1934-35
Ethiopia 1935-36
Spanish Civil War 1936-39
Sino-Japanese War II 1937-45
Finnish Winter War 1939-40
Second World War 1939-45
Greek Civil War 1944-49
Indonesia 1945-50
Indochina War 1946-54
Chinese Civil War III 1946-49
Indo-Pakistani War 1947-49
Arab-Israeli War 1948-49

This is what happens when you don’t have Richard Nixon to kick around any more

The newest casualty in the Avalon Hill line is 1914. We must announce the demise of this title, a veritable abortion of a game designed by the same people who did PanzerBlitz. Because of the great title we tried every which way to salvage it, even to the point of setting up a special answering service to handle the flood of questions it generated. It proved too costly in man-hours and money to continue with this title. Our fall entry will fill its place in the line. Collectors should order now because once our limited supply has been exhausted it will take its place in the land of unavailability. Production was stopped on this title six months ago and stocks are running low.

--The Avalon Hill General Vol. 10 No. 2 July-August 1973

Niekulturnie

Imposing Communism on Poland was like trying to saddle a cow.

--attributed to Joseph Stalin
with thanks to Mark Wegierski

But That One Player Must have the Full Complement of Appendages

Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex was listed in Avalon Hill/Victory’s catalogue as follows: multi-player trivia board game; average complexity; 1-4 players.

--contributed by Roger Cox

Disinformation

The eternal memory of the victims of Byelorussia is symbolised in the name of Khatyn. This was a village near Minsk that was razed by the Nazis: all the villagers, including children, were killed. Khatyn is one of the 700 Byelorussian villages of which nothing has remained except the memory of them. An excerpt from Leonid Yeremeyev’s USSR in World War TwoThrough the Eyes of Friends and Foes, published in Moscow in 1973 and updated in 1985. When Stalin and Hitler divided Poland in 1939, 240,000 Polish officers and men fell into Soviet hands. After Germany invaded the USSR in 1941, 15,000 Poles were found to be missing, but the Soviets denied any knowledge. The German army captured Katyn in 1941 and discovered a mass grave of over 4,000 Polish officers and men in 1943.

After re-taking Katyn, the Soviets set up an inquiry which claimed the Poles had been executed by the Germans. It has since been conclusively proven that the Poles were executed by the NKVD. It would appear that the Soviets chose Khatyn simply because of the similarity of its name to Katyn, in the hopes of obscuring their responsibility for the Katyn massacre.

Guns Don’t Kill People, Chickens Kill People

The price of an AK-47 on Uganda’s black market is one chicken.

--Harper’s Magazine May 2000

Number Nine ... Number Nine ... Number Nine ... Number Nine ...

“Dear Reader:

The December, 1985 issue of Game News (issue #10) was mailed by Waverly Press in Easton, Maryland, our new printer.

Two important things happened due to this change in printers. First, the November, 1985 issue (#9) was not printed. Due to several problems in the change to a new printer, the previous printer couldn’t get the November issue out before the December issue was mailed. Unfortunately we couldn’t change the volume number or issue number of December to adjust for not printing the November issue. (Trivia buffs and collectors will enjoy asking about issue #9 of Game News years from now.)”

This is an extract from a letter from Anne Jaffe, Editor, and Dana Lombardy, Publisher, of Game News, which appeared in the January 1986 issue (issue #11). One can only conclude that issue #9 of Game Trade News was similarly MIA and presumed dead.

Note 1: from the Beatles’ White Album 150 Years Too Soon

When the French were in Palestine besieging the city of Acre, Napoleon had prepared a proclamation making Palestine an independent Jewish state. This proclamation was printed and dated the 20th of April 1799.

© 1999 by Dr. Ben Weider