With motives never clearly articulated and sparking an international crisis, a US soldier, Specialist William A. Thomson, Jr of Columbus, Georgia, stationed in West Berlin’s Turner Barracks broke into the 
heavy armour motor pool and commandeered a fifty-tonne M60 tank. Proceeding to destroy the main gate of the post, Turner crashed through Checkpoint Charlie entering East Berlin. For some seventy very tense minutes, chaos ensured as Thompson swivelled the turret and took aim at East German and Soviet troops—no shots were fired—and then drove to the crossing at Drewitz. Diplomats and officers from the barracks were getting involved and eventually Thompson’s superiors were allowed into the Soviet sector and persuaded him to surrender and remand him to custody. The Americans were later permitted to retrieve the tank. During his court-martial, Thomas was characterised as a quiet individual with no history of wrong-doing or insubordination.
one year ago: An Imaginary Report on an American Rock Festival (1973) plus another MST3K classic
two years ago: the Moldo-Russian War (1992) plus The Starlost
three years ago: a satanic variety show, Pioneer 10 (1972), a line-of-sight telegraph (1792) plus telegraph abbreviations and shorthand
four years ago: comics cartography, a more environmentally friendly brick plus Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
five years ago: Bauhaus style logos for modern companies, a study of the Mosaic Virus by AI, the Overton Window, cleaner-burning trains plus the Communist International (1919)
