History of the Day: 11/27

On this day in 1095, Pope Urban II declared the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. He promised the knights:

All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.

One of the knights responded:

I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God.

Oh, wait, no, that was Osama Bin Laden. But that's OK, because the knight of the crusades put Muslim terrorists to shame, massacring and stealing from Jews and Orthodox Christians. It was on this day, over a thousand years later (in 2004) that Pope John Paul II finally returned the relics of St. John Chrysostom (who, himself, had some seriously anti-Semitic words) to the Orthodox from whom they were stolen.

The American Statistical Association was founded on this day in 1839. 92.7% of people could care less.

The first partial human face transplant was completed on this day in 2005. It's like a faceplant, but with less humorous results. Only slightly.

Happy birthday to Bruce Lee, born on this day in 1940. He died at 33 (the age I am now), but packed more awesomeness into his life than I could hope to in a bajillion years. Here he is playing ping pong with (are you ready) nunchucks! And kicking butt!

Horace, the Bruce Lee of ancient Roman poets, died on this day in 8 BC. I mostly appreciate him for his Ode 47, concerning "butt dust."

Pulvis et umbra sumus. / We are but dust and shadow.

The composer Guillaume Dufay died on this day in 1474. He composed beautiful polyphonic works such as Se la face ay pale and the magnificent Ave Maris Stella. He also wrote a requiem mass which is now lost. Perhaps it could have been sung at the funeral of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians, who was assassinated by a former supervisor on this day in 1978. The unfortunate name of his killer prompted this disturbing headline. Milk is a hero to many homosexual Americans, even prompting the creation of this icon.

Finally, today is Thanksgiving! Despite the hoopla about friendly settlers and tribal benefactors, it is telling that the proclamation calls them "heathen natives." Later, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would call for national celebrations of Thanksgiving (although both were Deists, not Christians). Our current date was set by FDR for, and I'm not joking, the express purpose of extending the Christmas season so people would buy more stuff. I suppose we were thankful for the immense public works program known as WWII that put our economy back on track. However, Roosevelt initially caught flack for his changing of the date. It was called "Franksgiving," and the debate between Republicans and Democrats over the date was parodied in Looney Toons cartoon short Holiday Highlights. Skip ahead to 5:40 and you can see competing dates, one titled "Republican" and one titled "Democrat."

History of the Day: 11/26

On this day in 43 BC, the 2nd Trimvirate, consisting of Octavian and two guys named Marcus, was formed. 1,433 years later, another triumvirate of sorts, consisting of Vlad the Impaler and two guys named Stephen was formed. Octavian eventually became sole ruler of Rome, taking the titles Augustus (magnificent) and Divi filius (son of god). Vlad became sole ruler of Wallachia, taking the name Dracula (son of the dragon or the devil). Guess which one killed more people ...

On this day in 1977, Vrillon, the representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, took over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes at 5:12 PM. Seriously. Of course, it is believed that it was a hoax, something akin to the Max Headroom station jamming that happened on Nov. 22nd in Chicago.

Happy birthday to Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. His is not exactly an inspiring story, but it is a very human one. He, at the end of his rope, called out to God and had a conversion experience of sorts. This helped him for a time, but he began to crave alcohol again and decided he needed to meet with other alcoholics. Thus, the community was formed out of the desperation of people with nowhere else to go. Although he was able to conquer that addiction, he smoked for the remainder of his days, even when he was on oxygen and suffering from emphysema. He was also infatuated with young women, to the point where the AA board, had to establish a "Founders Watch" to steer young women away from him at meetings he attended. On his deathbead, his final request was a glass of whiskey (which was denied). Still, his efforts helped uncounted masses suffering from addiction.

Happy birthday as well to Charles Shulz, creator of Peanuts and my favorite existential philosopher, Charlie Brown. Shulz' first cartoon, the precursor to Peanuts, was Li'l Folks. Today is also the feastday of St. Stylianos, who could be the patron saint of li'l folks, or at least of day care operators. Unlike many monks of his age, he didn't withdraw from the world. Rather, he spent his days in service to the community, especially caring for children. He would keep them while the mothers went out to do what mothers do. Then, at night, he would retire to his solitary cell for prayer and sleep.

On this day in 1326, Hugh the younger Despenser was put to death for treason and causing a rift between the king and queen of England. His execution, which was quite gruesome, inspired this picture. Directly after being convicted and sentenced, he was dragged behind four horses to his place of execution, where a great fire was lit. He was stripped naked, and biblical verses denouncing arrogance and evil were written on his skin. He was then hanged from a gallows 50 ft. high, but cut down before he could choke to death. Then, he was tied to a ladder, in full view of the crowd. The executioner climbed up beside him, and sliced off his ... ummm ... well ... he pulled a "bobbit" on him (the remains of which were thrown into the fire) while he was still alive and conscious. Subsequently, the executioner plunged his knife into his abdomen, and slowly pulled out, and cut out, his entrails and heart, which were likewise burnt before the ecstatic crowd. Just before he died, it is recorded that he let out a "ghastly inhuman howl," much to the delight and merriment of the spectators. Finally, his corpse was beheaded, and his body cut into four pieces, and his head was mounted on the gates of London. Wow. That's an execution.

Sojourner Truth died on this day in 1883. She's one of my few American heroes. She rewrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic for freed slaves, called The Valiant Soldiers. You can hear a clip of the magnificent group Sweet Honey in the Rock singing it here. In addition to working to end slavery, she also worked for women's rights. Her speech, Ain't I A Woman, is enough to shut the mouth of any man and should be memorized by students before they ever set eyes on The Gettysburg Address or the Declaration of Independence.

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Finally, today is the birthday of William Cowper; hymnist, poet and abolitionist; born on this day in 1731. His poems include Boadicea: an Ode, in which the fall of the Roman Empire is contrasted with the eventual rise of the British Empire (eat that, Augustus!), and Verses supposed to have been written by Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk was a real person on whom the fictional life of Robinson Crusoe was modeled. Cowper shows his belief in animal rights in his poem Care for the Lowest:

I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

He was a great friend of John Newton (who wrote Amazing Grace) and wrote anti-slavery poems as well, including Sweet Meat Has Sour Sauce or The African Slave Trader in the Dumps and The Negro's Complaint:

FORCED from home and all its pleasures
Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger's treasures
O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enrolled me,
Minds are never to be sold.

Alas, though, Cowper was afflicted with depression, and many of his hymns and poems are tinged with it. In this poem, he shows how hope can turn to greater despair (an important thing to remember, as we pin all our hopes on the man who ran hope and change as his platform):

HOPE, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile
Through wintry skies, upon the frozen waste,
Cheers e'en the face of misery to a smile ;
But soon the momentary pleasure's past...

Oh then, kind Heaven, be this my latest breath !
Here end my life, or make it worth my care ;
Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
And frustrate hope severer than despair.

One cannot mention Cowper without including at least on hymn. On a night he de­cid­ed to commit su­i­cide by drown­ing him­self. He called a cab and told the driv­er to take him to the Thames Riv­er. How­ev­er, thick fog came down and pre­vent­ed them from find­ing the riv­er, or that was the excuse of the cabby who, after driving around lost for a while, delivered Cowper to his own doorstep. Cowper, believing this to be the work of God, wrote this hymn:

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Still, although Cowper never succeeded in killing himself, he spent the last days of his life in utter despair. This is the final stanza of the final poem he wrote, The Castaway:

No voice divine the storm allayed,
No light propitious shone,
When, snatched from all effectual aid,
We perished, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.

History of the Day: 11/24

Happy Evolution Day! On this day in 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species. Ever since then there have been those who mocked evolution, those who mocked those who mocked evolution, and, as always, those who mocked everyone. In other evolution history, Austrolopithecus afarensis, named Lucy after the Beatle's song, was found on this day in 1974. I suppose she had kaleidoscope eyes ... and was tripping.

On this day in 1963, Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television. Eat your heart out, Jerry Springer! In other conspiracy news, Joseph Mobutu seized power in the Congo and became president in a coup sponsored by the CIA (showing their characteristic knack for choosing the worst person possible to back). The first thing he did was rename himself Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga or "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake." The next thing he did was rename the country Zaire. Then, he embezzled public funds, conducted public hangings, and generally acted like a tyrant for over thirty years until being overthrown by rebels in 1997. When questioned about his rampant evil, he replied:

When a chief takes a decision, he decides - period.

In other words:

I'm the decider.

Happy birthday to Baruch Spinoza, born on this day in 1632. His name is the Hebrew variant of Barack, which means "blessed." Baruch made the mistake of thinking, including postulating that only matter is eternal. If that is the case, then matter is god which is, of course, pantheism. Proving that Jews can be every bit as intolerant as anyone else, the Jewish community issued a cherem against him, kind of a writ of excommunication. It said:

With the judgment of the angels and the sentence of the saints, we anathematize, execrate, curse and cast out Baruch de Espinoza, the whole of the sacred community assenting, in presence of the sacred books with the six-hundred-and-thirteen precepts written therein, pronouncing against him the malediction wherewith Elisha cursed the children, and all the maledictions written in the Book of the Law. Let him be accursed by day, and accursed by night; let him be accursed in his lying down, and accursed in his rising up; accursed in going out and accursed in coming in. May the Lord never more pardon or acknowledge him; may the wrath and displeasure of the Lord burn henceforth against this man, load him with all the curses written in the Book of the Law, and blot out his name from under the sky; may the Lord sever him from all the tribes of Israel, weight him with all the maledictions of the firmament contained in the Book of Law; and may all ye who are obedient to the Lord your God be saved this day.
Hereby then are all admonished that none hold converse with him by word of mouth, none hold communication with him by writing; that no one do him any service, no one abide under the same roof with him, no one approach within four cubits length of him, and no one read any document dictated by him, or written by his hand.

Ouch! Baruch, who renamed himself Benedict (which also means "blessed"), later reasonably said:

I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them.

Well, that's his first problem right there! Even though he was hated by his peers, he is much beloved today. Jorge Luis Borges wrote this poem about him:

Time carries him as the river carries
A leaf in the downstream water.
No matter. The enchanted one insists
And shapes God with delicate geometry.
Since his illness, since his birth,
He goes on constructing God with the word.
The mightiest love was granted him
Love that does not expect to be loved.

Even Einstein, not known for his poetry or fits of passion, wrote the following lines in a copy of Zu Spinozas Ethik:

How much do I love that noble man
More than I could tell with words
I fear though he'll remain alone
With a holy halo of his own.

Happy birthday to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the French artist born on this day in 1864 whose works you've probably seen. And another one to Scott Joplin, the Ragtime composer born on this day in 1868 and best known for Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer.

On this day in 1572, John Knox died. He was largely responsible for the introduction and eventual dominance of Calvinism/Presbyterianism in Scotland. In his final will, he wrote:

None have I corrupted, none have I defrauded; merchandise have I not made.

which sounds suspiciously like the 42 Negative Declarations of Ma'at. I wonder if he was a closet Egyptian. As for whether he was a good influence on Scotland or not, I relate this story. I visited several monasteries in Scotland. In one, there were some high crosses which had been smashed by Knox's people. In another, there was a head of a statue of Jesus which had been knocked off by others Knox had inspired, and thrown down a latrine. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Diego Rivera, another revolutionary, died on this day in 1957. He was the husband of Frida Kahlo, and a muralist.

Finally, Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen (who was born in Zanzibar!), died on this day in 1991. Of his band, he said:

The concept of Queen is to be regal and majestic. Glamour is part of us, and we want to be dandy.

He succeeded. I leave you with a fitting Queen melody: Who Wants to Live Forever?

History of the Day: 11/21

Happy World Hello Day! This day was instituted in 1973 because Israel and Egypt (and the rest of the Middle East) were at odds. I wonder how that worked out? Sigh. Still, in the hopes that, this year, world peace will result from it, "Hello!"

On this day in 1905, Albert Einstein published his paper, Does the Intertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content? It was a rhetorical question. The answer was, of course, E = mc², or BOOOOOM!

The radio program, King Biscuit Time, began broadcasting on this day in 1941. It popularized many famous blues singers and featured Sonny Boy Williamson II and Robert Lockwood Jr. as the house band. And, as King Biscuit Time was to blues, Toy Story was to computer-generated animation. It was released fifty years later.

A series of hoaxes, scams and murders occurred on this day in history.

In 1953, authorities at the British Natural History Museum announced that the "Piltdown Man" was a hoax. This might have something to do with some of the "scientific" reconstructions of the body.

In 1980, Americans wondered "Who Shot JR?" It was one of the highest-rated episodes of a TV show ever aired, which might explain why today is also World Television Day (celebrating inane TV and the people who watch it.)

Six years later, American hero Oliver North and his secretary began shredding documents implicating themselves in the sale of weapons to Iran and funding the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. It occurs to me that, without the U.S., the Middle East would be armed with slings and arrows today.

In other fundraising history, in 1991, Primetime Live aired The Apple of God's Eye, exposing the fundraising practices of Robert Tilton. There was a lot to work with.

The Columbine Massacre occurred on this day as well. No, not that one, the Mine Massacre of 1927. In this one, state police dressed in trenchcoats gunned down striking coal miners. Fortunately, kids don't pay attention in history class, or they might get funny ideas.

Happy birthday to Voltaire, French philosopher who was born on this day in 1694. He is remembered for quite a few witty and pithy quotes, such as:

• The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture for wild beasts to fight in.
• Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.
• It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
• Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

However, he did not say the quote (or anything like it) for which he is most famous:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Finally, we mourn the passing of Henry Purcell, a Baroque English composer and, apparently, early hair band enthusiast. You can hear a bunch of his songs here, but these two are particularly interesting. Dido's Lament is the most famous aria from his most famous opera, Dido and Aeneas. I don't know the name of this song, but it is an excellent example of counter-tenor singing. Basically, all you need to know is THAT'S A DUDE!!! Whoa!

The circumstances of Purcell's death are worth mention. He came home late from the theatre and found that his wife had locked him out. Personally, I'm not sure why he didn't just curl up under his wig.

History of the Day: 11/20

Catalan author Joanot Martorell published Tirant lo Blanc on this day in 1490. This is important for two reasons, first because it was a major influence on Cervantes' Don Quixote, and second because the title means "The White Knight." Cool! Another book, Moby Dick, was inspired by an 80-ton sperm whale which attacked a whaling ship from Nantucket on this day in 1820.

On this day in 1902, two Frenchmen dreamed up the Tour de France over lunch in Paris. Tomorrow, they independently dreamed up how to beat each other by doping. 21 years later, the Germans replaced the Papiermark with the Retenmark as the official currency of Germany at an exchange rate of One Trillion to One. Or, as the Germans say, fünfhundert fünfundfünfzig. Now, I don't speak German, but I bet that's really fun to say!

In 1983, U.S. viewers were treated to The Day After, a made-for-television movie about nuclear war. Kind of an after-school special for adults. 100 million people watched. Afterward, Carl Sagan and William F. Buckley Jr. debated nuclear proliferation. Buckley argued for deterrence. Sagan characterized it thusly:

two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five

The next year, on the same day, Sagan founded SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). The year after that, Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released. Coincidence? The next year, Denis Kucinich's ship crash-landed on this planet. Not really, but that would have been really funny, wouldn't it? However, Edwin Hubble, who proved there are other galaxies than this and that the universe is expanding, was born on the same day in 1889.

Happy birthday to Maximinus, once emperor of Rome. Funny name. "Great-little". Reminds me of a guy my dad served with in the Air Force, Major Minor. Not kidding.

Alistair Cooke, journalist and onetime host of Masterpiece Theatre, was born on this day in 1908. Alistair Cookie, host of Monsterpiece Theatre, made his debut 70 years later. In the words of the latter:

It a bit esoteric.

Happy birthday to two Joseph's, Biden and Walsh, born in 1942 and 47 respectively. They have a lot in common. Both have tattoos, are funny and are good at what they do. Yet both had less success as solo artists than with the big name acts with which they were attached (Obama and the Eagles respectively) . And both are less well-known than the other Joe, the Plumber. Still, life's been good to them so far.

Leo Tolstoy died on this day in 1910. I've already written about him, but I neglected to say that he wrote a great many short stories (very un-Russian of him), including this one which everyone should read, The Three Questions.

Finally, today is the feastday of King Edmund of East Anglia. His army was defeated by the Great Heathen Army (Danish) and he was martyred, first filled with arrows "as if a hedgehog," then decapitated. His head (according to legend) was taken by a wolf and protected until his remaining soldiers found it (because it was calling out to them, like Horton's invisible world, "I am here, I am here, I am heeeeeeere!"), and then reattached to his body which was entirely healed of all wounds (except, you know, the dead part). Later, when another Danish king was destroying a church dedicated to Edmund, he saw the saint charging at him from the clouds at which point he fell dead. This is known as "Edmund's Revenge." It's like Montezuma's Revenge, except with the latter, you only wish you were dead.

History of the Day: 11/19

On this day in 1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, a fantastically brief, yet powerful, speech which argued that the Union soldiers who had died were preserving government "of the people, by the people and for the people" by, in essence, preventing some of the people from forming their own government. Of course, those people were attempting to preserve a society formed on the backs of other people who had no rights at all, so really everyone was lying. Here is the only confirmed photo of Lincoln at the gathering.

By the way, Lincoln's speech bears more than a passing resemblance to another speech given during another civil war of sorts, the Peloponnesian War (between Athens and Sparta) in ancient Greece. Pericles' funeral oration is so similar, it is as if Lincoln took it and masterfully truncated it to a more manageable chunk. Here is Thomas Hobbes translation of that speech (go figure).

Billy Sunday, former baseball star and famed evangelical preacher, was born on this day in 1862. His sermons were pretty standard revival tent fare, but his delivery was spectacular. He would turn somersaults, stand on his head, spin around and jump up and down while he spoke. Here he is at the White House. Some of the Progressives of his day such as Carl Sandburg and Sinclair Lewis, derided Sunday for his connection with traditional Republicans and big business. Lewis wrote a story which included a "Mike Monday"...

... the distinguished evangelist, the best-known Protestant pontiff in America...As a prize-fighter he gained nothing but his crooked nose, his celebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable.

But this was unfair, as Sunday supported several Progressive positions. He was in favor of urban reform and women's suffrage and condemned capitalists whose...

...private lives are good, but whose public lives are very bad, who would not pick the pockets of one man with the fingers of their hand, but who would, without hesitation pick the pockets of eighty million people with fingers of their monopoly or commercial advantage.

Of child labor, he said:

Men who will gladly draw their check for $10,000 and give it a child's hospital see nothing ridiculous in the fact that the $10,000 for the child's hospital came of out of $200,000 made from a system of child labor which crushes more children in one year than the hospital will heal in ten.

I guess he was kind of Mike Huckabee 100 years ago. Happy birthday as well to Tommy Dorsey, possibly the greatest of the Big Band era band-leaders, born in 1905. He propelled many unknown singers to fame, including Frank Sinatra. You can hear him on the Tommy Dorsey Show here. (with Frank Sinatra) There's a surprisingly large amount of Dorsey's music available on the internet, including some well known tunes such as Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Boogie Woogie, and (because Christmas apparently started three weeks ago) Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.

Happy birthday to the McCaughey septuplets, born on this day in 1997. Ready to feel old? They'll be going to middle school next year.

Finally, today is both Equal Opportunity Day and World Toilet Day. First, some mention should be made of World Toilet Day which was started by the World Toilet Organization (or WTO, and I'm not kidding) which was, in turn, started by a gentleman who wanted to "break the taboo of toilet and sanitation and legitimize it for mainstream culture." Right on! So, what do Equal Opportunity Day and World Toilet Day have to do with each other? This was argued in ancient Persia in the court of King Darius. The third chapter of the first book of Esdras (part of the Apocrypha, sadly ripped from most Protestant Bibles) chronicles a debate between four men who argued whether women, truth, the power of the king or wine were the strongest. The one arguing for wine said:

Gentlemen, how is wine the strongest? It leads astray the minds of all who drink it. It makes equal the mind of the king and the orphan, of the slave and the free, of the poor and the rich. It turns every thought to feasting and mirth, and forgets all sorrow and debt. It makes all hearts feel rich, forgets kings and satraps, and makes everyone talk in millions. When people drink they forget to be friendly with friends and kindred, and before long they draw their swords. And when they recover from the wine, they do not remember what they have done. Gentlemen, is not wine the strongest, since it forces people to do these things?

Basically, alcohol equally lays everyone before the porcelain throne. I can personally attest to this, although, for me, it was bad lasagna and not wine that did me in on Monday. (Shudders with the memory.)

History of the Day: 11/18

In 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, who was engaged in a conflict with Phillip IV of France, issued the Papal Bull Unam Sanctam, or "The One Holy." In it, he made several assertions, including:

• outside of her (the Church) there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins
• of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster, and
• in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal.

The last one is interesting, because it rests on the tradition that St. Peter was buried with the two swords which he surrendered at the arrest of Christ on Maundy Thursday.

In 1307, Austria had invaded Switzerland. The Austrian representative in a small, Swiss town had raised his hat on a pole and ordered all the citizens of the town to bow before it when they passed. Kind of a Pledge of Allegiance, but with a hat. On this day, William Tell, a Swiss Rosa Parks of sorts, refused to do so. He was ordered to shoot an apple off his own son's head, or his son would be put to death. Tell succeeded without killing his son. But the Austrian wanted to know why Tell had prepared two arrows. Tell replied (in the worlds of the play Wilhelm Tell by Schiller)

If that my hand had struck my darling child,
This second arrow I had aimed at you,
And, be assured, I should not then have miss'd.

This prompted a rebellion which led to the eventual founding of the Swiss Confederation. The legend became the inspiration for other works of art and other revolutionaries. The poem The Tale of William Tell by Hm. Ness summarizes the revolutionary spirit nicely:

The apple split with such a force-
No trace of apple could be found.
But all the country changed its course-
No longer serfs to lords were bound.
And freedom rose upon the shores
Because Sir William refused the lords.

The play by Schiller was praised by Hitler in Mein Kampf, until an assassin who tried to kill him was dubbed "a new William Tell." Then, it was banned. Another, less beloved assassin cited Tell as an inspiration as well, John Wilkes Booth. In a journal entry he wrote:

With every man's hand against me, I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for and what made Tell a Hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat.

The Schiller play also inspired Rossini's opera of the same name. The overture of that opera has been parodied a billion times, including The Mom Song by Anita Renfroe and The President's Song by the Animaniacs.

On this day in 1926, George Bernard Shaw refused the money for his Nobel Prize, saying:

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

Steamboat Willie was released on this day in 1928. Walt Disney has been happy to take our money ever since. Most versions of the cartoon have removed about thirty seconds which are believed to promote "animal cruelty." These instances include Mickey pulling a cat's tail and then swinging the cat by the tail above his head, picking up a nursing sow and "playing" its babies like an accordion keyboard, and using a goose as bagpipes. Sigh. Ten years later, Jim Jones practiced some "people cruelty" when he and his followers, the Peoples Temple, drank poisoned kool-aid in a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives, including over 270 children.

Finally, on this day in 1976, Man Ray died at the age of 86. He was a photographer and artist whose work ... well ... how to describe it? He was friends with Salvador Dali. That should be sufficient.

History of the Day: 11/17

Today is International Students Day. It was started to recall student involvement in the beginning of the Velvet Revolution (begun on this day) in Czechoslovakia which eventually overthrew the communist government.

On this day in 284, Diocletian was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers. In Serbia, a folk personage named Dukljan exists who is based on Diocletian. Once, he removed the Sun from the sky and brought it to Earth. Fortunately, St. John was able to trick him and restore the sun. Dukljan chased John and tore a piece of flesh from his foot, which is why we have arches in our feet today. You can see Dukljan today, chained in the Morača river new Duklha. He is constantly gnawing at his chains and, each year around Christmas, almost breaks free and destroys the world. But four Gypsy blacksmiths reforge the chains, and all is well. At least ... ummm ... that's what I was told.

As for the real Diocletian, he wasn't such a bad emperor, all things considered, although he is much maligned because he persecuted Christians mercilessly. The oracle of Apollo said that the sun god's messages were hindered by the "just of the earth." That was interpreted to mean Christians. Later, when Christians became the dominant religion, they forgot about the being "just" part. Eventually, when they were so powerful that there were no religions to persecute them, they started persecuting each other just to keep the tradition up. Which leads me to this day in 1558 when Elizabeth I succeeded her sister, Mary I. The latter was known as "Bloody Mary" for her violent persecutions of Protestants. So, when Elizabeth took the throne, she balanced things out by violently persecuting Catholics.

The conflict between Rome and England had been going on for almost 1,000 years. Today is the feastday of St. Hilda of Whitby 664. She is one of those rare medieval women who wielded great influence. She is primarily remembered in her role during the debate over continental/"Roman" church traditions and insular/"Celtic" traditions at the Synod of Whitby in , including how to cut your hair, get baptized, and when to celebrate Easter. If you're so inclined, you can read about it in Book 3, Chapter 25 of the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. (Spoiler: the Romans win.)

Speaking of a great power overunning a smaller one, Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai lama, was proclaimed Tibet's head of state on this day in 1950 at the age of 15. He was ousted three years later by the Chinese. I bet they wish they'd had more guns. At least that's what the NRA, founded on this day in 1871, would say.

On this day in 1941, Joseph Grew, the US ambassador to Japan, cabled the State Department that Japan planned to attack Pearl Harbor. The cable, titled Emperor Hirohito Determined to Attack in the United States, was ignored.

In 1978, one of the greatest travesties of all time, the Star Wars Holiday Special, aired for the one and only time on CBS. It began a tradition of really cheesy holiday programming. Expect the Twilight Holiday Special sometime this year.

Happy birthday to three, fascinating gentlemen. Howard Dean was born in 1948. On the wikipedia page of his quotes, the first one is:

BEEEEEYAAAAAWWWW!

Right on! RuPaul, the best looking man and woman in modeling, is 48 years FAAAABULOUS today. And another musical, Jeff Buckley, would be 42 if he hadn't died at 31. His death is interesting. He went swimming in Wolf River Harbor, a tributary of the Mississippi, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. When one of his bandmates turned around, he was gone.

Buckley was truly an original. He didn't release that many albums, but I recommend all of his songs. Just to give you a taste, here are two. The first is a cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It's the kind of thing a fallen angel that hadn't fully fallen would sing. The other is Corpus Christi Carol, Buckley's take on Benjamin Britten's arrangement of the 14th c. Falcon Carol, which is itself one of the weirdest and most awesome Christmas carols of all time. The fact that he sings it at all is cool. The way that he sings it is genius.

History of the Day: 11/14

Happy 86th birthday to the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). The BBC had its finest hour in WWII as it kept the British people connected and informed during the German bombings, including the bombing of Coventry, which happened on this day in 1940. The cathedral at Coventry still has a peace chapel which features a cross made from two, charred timbers left over from the attacks.

Happy birthday to Leopold Mozart and Johann van Beethoven, each composers and each fathers of more famous sons, Amadeus and Ludwig. Vicarious much? Today is the birthday of another composer, Aaron Copeland, called "the dean of American composers," although, as NPR noted on his 100th birthday, he's an unlikely hero. He composed Fanfare for the Common Man, which ranks in the top 10 of my all-time favorite classical compositions. I think, if I were to wake up to it every day, I'd have a much brighter view of the world. Here are his thoughts on elevator music:

I object to background music no matter how good it is. Composers want people to listen to their music, they don't want them doing something else while their music is on. I'd like to get the guy who sold all those big businessmen the idea of putting music in the elevators, for he was really clever. What on earth good does it do anybody to hear those four or eight bars while going up a few flights.

Booker T. Washington died on this day in 1915, at the age of 55. His mother was a slave, but he raised himself up and founded the Tuskegee Institute to help others do the same. Although he experienced oppression in ways that most modern Americans couldn't even dream, he still was able to say:

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

What's interesting is that he was considered kind of a traitor to African-Americans in his day, especially by W.E.B. Dubois. If you will permit me a gross generalization, Washington advocated vocational education rather than overt pursuit of civil rights believing that, eventually, minorities would be perceived as equals and accepted. Dubois advocated claiming civil rights immediately as, you know, it was guaranteed by the Constitution and all (especially after the 14th Amendment). You can really hear the contrast in their ideas in Washington's Atlanta Compromise speech (here's a clip of a recording of Washington delivering it) and Dubois' criticism of that same speech.

What's interesting is that it took both ideas to achieve the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s. When Rosa Parks went to prison for that bus ride, know who she called? Not Martin Luther King Jr. Not the NAACP. Not a lawyer. She called a former Pullman Porter, an uneducated railcar worker who had achieved something skin to middle class standing by pure, hard work. He got the wheels moving and brought in King. It was the Porters who financed the Civil Rights movement at first. It took both the laborer of Washington and the "talented tenth" of Dubois to facilitate the changes that took place.

The contrast between ideologies of how to deal with race is no more evident than in the person of Condoleeza (from the Italian con dolcezza, "with sweetness") Rice, born on this day in 1954. She grew up in the midst of the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama. Her father, a Presbyterian minister named John Wesley Rice (how does a Presbyterian minister get named "John Wesley"?), simultaneously armed himself to protect his family from the KKK and spoke out against the methods (not the goals) of the Civil Rights leaders in his area. He advocated Booker T. Washington's position, telling his daughter she would need to be "twice as good" in order to make it in the hostile world. So, Rice did that. Today, Rice is the first African-American woman to serve as Secretary of State, putting forth public policy in stiletto boots. But she has had terrible things said about her, such as:

• Harry Belafonte called her, and other blacks in the Bush administration, "black tyrants."
• Bill Fletcher Jr. of the Trans-Africa Forum said she was "only black by accident."
• The Black Commentator Magazine said, "A black woman who doesn’t know how to talk to black people is of limited political use to an administration that has few black allies."

Rice, in addition to her duties in the White House, is a concert pianist. She once performed with Yo-Yo Ma. She prefers the music of Brahms who, she said, is "passionate, but not sentimental." I think that tells you everything you need to know about her.

Another musician, who is definitely sentimental, is Yanni who shares his birthday with Rice. Here is one of his songs. I don't know the name, but I'm sure it's something like The Infinite Beyond or Flowers of Tomorrow.

Speaking of really popular people without talent, today is also the birthday of Claude Monet, born on this day in 1840. Actually, I really like him, although many of his contemporaries derided him. Here is a review of one of his paintings:

Impression — I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.

That painting, called Impression, was what gave the name to the artistic and musical movement known as Impressionism. Monet had this to say about the painting:

Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me. I had sent a thing done in Le Havre, from my window, sun in the mist and a few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground....They asked me for a title for the catalogue, it couldn't really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: 'Put Impression.'

Another interesting thing about Monet is that he (pictured here) looks remarkably like Robert de Niro.

Finally, Georg Hegel died on this day in 1831. He was a German philosopher primarily known for his theory of dialectical reality. A Thesis gives rise to its opposite, its Anti-Thesis. The two resolve in a union or Synthesis. Hmmmm .... let me try again. "A" gives rise to "Not-A" which, in turn, resolves into "B". No ... not quite. OK, Celtic music has its anti-thesis in Gospel music which resolve in Country music. Country music has its anti-thesis in Blues music which resolves as Rock'n'Roll. Rock has its anti-thesis in Rap which, I guess, resolved into Kid Rock. Thus, Kid Rock represents the pinnacle of music so far?

Good grief, I hope I'm wrong. I guess that explains how Marx was able to use the Hegelian dialectic to explain Marxism. I suppose this could be used to explain American politics. Federalists gave rise to anti-Federalists which resolved into the Democrat-Republicans. The Democrat-Republicans gave rise to the Whigs which resolved into Abraham Lincoln's Republicans. Then, the Republicans gave rise to the new Democrats, at which time they switched places and positions entirely and now have merged into what is essentially a huge Federalist party. So, I guess that means they'll give rise to ... Libertarians?

History of the Day: 11/13

On this day in 1841, James Braid saw a demonstration of "animal magnetism," which led to his study and development of hypnotism. Little did he know that it would eventually be used to make people cluck like chickens for street comedians. It's the circle of life, you know.

Today we mourn the passing of three, influential authors. Margaret Wise Brown was born in 1910 and died on this day 42 years later. She is primarily known for her children's book Goodnight Moon. It's been parodied quite a few times, including this anti-Bush version.

Vine Deloria Jr. was born in 1933 and died on this day 72 years later. He is an American Indian who wrote such unbiased works as Custer Died for Your Sins, God Is Red and Red Earth, White Lies. They're pretty hard reading, mostly because you feel really, really guilty for being of European descent. He was also a poet. Here is his poem, Shem:

I saw you in a vision
Colors of royalty and holiness
A delicate, sweet and pure love that loved me
I saw love.
I saw God.

Another poet, Russell Tyrone Jones, better known as Ol' Dirty B***ard, was born in 1933 and died on this day at the age of 36. And, if any of you would like to know if I'm down with ODB, I can only reply that you know me. I'd post some of his songs, but when you have to bleep out the name of the artist ...

Two massacres happened on this day in England. In 1887, one of several days given the title Bloody Sunday occurred in London. During the Long Depression, many people had moved to the cities seeking employment and, naturally, there weren't enough jobs to go around. The Social Democratic Federation and Irish National League teamed up for a demonstration. 2,000 troops and 400 police were deployed to deal with around 10,000 protesters. All things considered, it wasn't really that bloody. Hundreds were hospitalized, but only three died. Given the time period, that's durn near miraculous.

In 1002, Ethelred the Unready of England ordered the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St Brice's Day Massacre. It seemed like a good idea at the time, as the Danish Vikings had been attacking and raiding England for over a decade. In Oxford, the Danes (including Gunhilde, sister of the king of Denmark) attempted to seek refuge in a church. So, the mob burned the church down. This led to the invasion of England by said Danish king, and Ethelred's demise.

So, let's summarize. Terrorists attack country. Leader, whose nickname is "Unready" and who has a decided smirk, responds with violence. That response ends up "emboldening" the enemy, leading to further attacks. There's a lesson here somewhere ...

The saint for whom the massacre was named, Brice of Tours, has a feastday today as well. There are two reasons why he should be patron saint of teachers. First, he is already patron saint of stomach upset. Second, he was apparently a thorn in the side of St. Martin (whose feastday was on the 11th.) When Martin's friends encouraged him to get rid of Brice, Martin replied:

If Jesus could put up with Judas, surely I can put up with Brice.

Today is also the feastday of St. John Chrysostom, the "golden mouthed." He was a very influential theologian in the early Church. Sadly, like many Christians throughout time, he was a bit of an anti-Semite as well. It's excused as either being against Christians who observed Jewish traditions and festivals, or just being frustrated with the persecution of the Church in general. Regardless, it's a shame that the same person said:

How think you that you obey Christ's commandments, when you spend your time collecting interest, piling up loans, buying slaves like livestock, and merging business with business? ... Upon this you heap injustice, taking possession of lands and houses, and multiplying poverty and hunger.

and

The Jewish people were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to the ultimate evil; they kicked about, they failed to accept the yoke of Christ, nor did they pull the plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said: "Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer." … Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter. This is why Christ said: "But as for these my enemies, who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slay them."

Finally, today is the feastday of St. Homobonus. His name means "Good Man." He's probably doing overtime right now, as the patron saint of business people.

History of the Day: 11/12

Happy birthday to Sor Juana Ines de la Crus, a Hispanic nun from Mexico born on this day in 1651. She, in addition to being a self-taught firebrand, was a bit of a proto-feminist. In her poems, she often mocked men for denigrating women, especially when it was the men who, themselves, promoted the very vices in women they denounced, like this one:

You mulish men, accusing
woman without reason,
not seeing you occasion
the very wrong you blame

She also had a really, really big necklace.

Happy 63rd birthday to another poet/musician who liked to denounce people, Neil Young. He's been a miner for a heart of gold, but he's gettin' old.

Finally, Canute the Great, Viking king of England, died on this day in 1035. He came with the raven banner of Odin, but eventually converted and ended up, apparently, getting crowned by angels (he did convert). You can read about his conquest in the Knytlinga Saga. Apparently, he was so powerful and successful, his subjects thought him divine and believed he controlled the waves. In response, Canute set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. The tide failed to stop. Canute leapt backwards and said,

Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws

He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again.

History of the Day: 11/11

On this day in 1215, the 4th Lateran Council defined the doctrine of transubstantiation (saying the bread and wine of the Eucharist literally are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ). This is in oposition to other theories, such as memorialism, consubstantiation, transignification, impanation and ationation. In other religious history, Anglican bishop John Atherton pressured the Irish House of Commons to pass An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery in 1634 which is really fun to say.

On this day in 1911, the 11/11/11 cold wave broke record highs and lows across the midwest. In Sprinfield, it went from 80 °F to 13 °F, a difference of 67 °F, in one day. One resident commented, "D'oh!"

Søren Kierkegaard died on this day in 1855. He was a proto-existentialist of sorts, saying that all humans (who are aware) face a kind of dread of the nameless unknown. The only solution, he thought, was to fling oneself from the cliff of despair, a blind leap of faith, in the hope that God would catch you. He also believed that Truth, while objectively true, is (for us) entirely subjective. I would go through some of his arguments, but his writing is sometimes obscure. Here is one of the opening passages from his Sickness Unto Death:

A human being is spirit. But, what is spirit?
Spirit is the self. But, what is the self?
The self is the relation that relates itself to itself
OR
Is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation;
The self is not the relation
But is the relation's relating itself to itself.

Right on! Liliuokalani, last queen of Hawaii, died on this day in 1917. In a fit of humanity, Grover Cleveland tried to reinstate her to the throne after European and American business interests deposed her. But they ignored the command of the president and, eventually, we got our 5oth state and, eventually, 44th president. Liliuokalani, in addition to being queen, was an author and composer. You might recognize her song Aloha 'Oe. She also played guitar, piano, organ, 'ukulele and zither.

She didn't, however, play banjo. But David "Stringbean" Akeman, who died on this day in 1973, was.

Today is Veterans Day. It used to be Armistice Day, commemorating the end of WWI (with the war officially ending on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month), but was expanded to remember all those who have served this country in the armed forced. In an interesting twist, two other militarily significant events occured on this day. In 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman began his march to the sea by burning Atlanta, GA to the ground. It was immortalized in this poem by Melville and this song by Henry Clay Work, although Sherman hated it because they always played it at public appearances he attended. Kind of the Stairway to Heaven of Civil War songs (lyrics).

Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea
While we were marching through Georgia.

Finally, today is the feastday of St. Martin of Tours and the beginning of St. Martin's Lent (an early version of Advent). Martin was a soldier during the reign of Julian. He was in the process of converting when he came upon a beggar. The beggar was cold, so he took his sword and sliced his cloak in two, giving half to the beggar. That night, he dreamed of Christ wearing half the cloak. He immediately rushed out to be baptized. This poem (which I did not write, but can't remember who did) regards this event:

Lesson for Beginners

Martin of Tours,
When he earned his shilling
Trooping the flags
Of the Roman Guard
Came on a poor
Aching and chilling
Beggar in rags
By the barracks yard.

Blind to his lack,
The Guard went riding.
But Martin a moment
Paused and drew
The coat from his back,
His sword from hiding,
And sabered his raiment
Into two.

Now some who muse
On the allegory
Affect to find
It a pious joke;
To the beggar what use,
For Martin what glory
In deed half-kind
And part of a cloak?

Still, it has charm
And a point worth seizing.
For all who move
In the mortal sun
Know halfway warm
Is better than freezing
As half a love
Is better than none.

Then, he quit the army, saying

I am a soldier of Christ and I cannot fight.

He was promptly jailed. He volunteered to go, unarmed, before the enemy, but they sued for peace before he was able to. The event is captured in this painting by Simone Martini. To the left, in the Roman camp with Emperor Julian, we see a group of soldiers and the treasurer distributing money to the mercenaries. To the right, waiting for the battle, behind the hill, we see the barbarian army with their armour and their spears. St. Martin (still a knight, but carrying a cross and shown in the act of blessing) is looking towards the Emperor but walking towards the enemy.

Interestingly, the word "chaplain" comes from "cape" and refers to the shrine where St. Martin's sliced cloak was kept.  When my brother, formerly a chaplain in the SC national guard, was sent to Afghanistan, I wrote this song for him based on the life of St. Martin.

History of the Day: 11/10

Happy birthday to the Marines, born on this day at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, PA. Yup. That's right. They were born in a bar. Speaking of the military, Major Henry Wirz, superintendent of the prison camp in Andersonville, GA during the Civil War ... (ahem, that is Wawah Against Nawthun Aggreshun) was executed on this day in 1865. He was the only Civil War soldier executed for war crimes. 'Cause, you know, the Northern prison camps were all sweetness and light.

Happy birthday to Sesame Street! I still remember the Don Piano take on the theme song:

Cloudy night, not even a star in sight,
On my way to where the air is dark.
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Yellowstone Park?

I'll never get it, NEVER!!!!

On this day in 1975, the 729 ft. freighter, SS Edmund Fitzgerald, sank during a storm on Lake Superior. All 29 members of the crew died. They can thank Gordon Lightfoot for remembering them in song because, otherwise, no one else would.

Happy 48th birthday to Neil Gaiman, one of the most amazing authors I've yet to encounter. He's written children's books such as Wolves in the Walls and Coraline; movies such as Stardust and Mirrormask; and adult novels such as Good Omens (written with Terry Pratchett, another excellent author) and American Gods. It's the latter that has given him the most notoriety and I highly recommend it. You'll never look at our country the same way. The idea behind it is that all the people who emigrated to this country brought their old gods with them who still exist in a much diminished form. But new gods have sprung up based on the idea that those things to which we give our devotion are our gods. Who doesn't have a shrine to the television in their living room? The biggest building in Charlotte isn't a church (like in Medieval times), it's the Bank of America building. Why did Bin Ladin target the Twin Towers on 9/11? And the powerful, new gods are trying to wipe out the old gods. It's definitely ... edgy (to say the least), but a great read. When asked where he got his prodigious imagination and off-the-wall ideas, Gaiman replied:

I wish I had an origin story for you. When I was four, I was bitten by a radioactive myth.

My man! But Gaiman first got famous for a comic book, a modern retelling of Morpheus, or Sandman, the god of the dreaming. Which reminds me that, on this day in 1619, René Descartes had the dreams which inspired his Meditations on First Philosophy. In the book, he attempted to submit the pursuit of philosophy to the Scientific Method, hoping to end the squabble between the prevalent Scholasticism, budding Skepticism and always-present Sophistry. So, what were these dreams and how did they inspire his Meditations?

Have you ever had a dream so real, you had to pinch yourself to see if you were awake? That's pretty much it. Because, if you can't know if you're asleep, then you can't know anything is real. This includes such truths as 2 + 2 = 4 or a circle is that shape in which all edges extend an equal distance from the center. Basically, the first thirty minutes of The Matrix:

What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can hear, what you can smell, taste and feel then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

Descartes, because of these dreams, concluded that, if he was to know anything with certainty, he must start by doubting everything. Only when he could discover one true thing could he proceed. What did he find?

I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No. If I convinced myself of something [or thought anything at all] then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So, after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.

Put simply, Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore, I am. That's quite a lot to get out of a dream! Unfortunately, he wasn't able to prove that you or I exist. Sorry!

History of the Day: 11/9

Happy birthday to Carl Sagan, astronomer and author, who was born on this day in 1934. He was a believer in the scientific method:

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas.

Of course, he also said:

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.

I'd love to know how he tested that one out. Happy 72nd birthday to Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary. She and her dudes formed one of the most iconic sounds of the folk and protest music scene in the 60s. Probably, their two most well-known songs are Where Have All the Flowers Gone and Puff, the Magic Dragon. The former is based on an ubi suntesque, Ukrainian folk song:

Where are the flowers?
The girls have plucked them.
Where are the girls?
They've all taken husbands.
Where are the men?
They're all in the army.

The latter is based on a poem by Ogden Nash called The Tale of Custard the Dragon. My family used to sing it about an old, Ford, station-wagon we had.

Puff, the tragic wagon, lived in our yard...

In the late 70s a children's video of the song was released. Here's the text.

Today is just a bad day in history of Jews, and a momentous day (both good and bad) for Germans.

In 694, Egica, king of the Visigoths in Hispania (Spain), accused the Jews of fomenting rebellion and, thus, ordered all Jewish-held land forfeit, all Jews to be enslaved to Christians, and all Jewish children over the age of seven to be taken from their homes and raised as Christians. Jewish-owned Christian slaves were to be invested with the Jews property and to be responsible for paying the taxes on the Jews. To be fair, Egica was kind of a jerk anyway. His father-in-law, the previous king, had made him promise two things, to protect his children and not deny justice to the people. Egica asked the bishops to release him from one of the oaths because, as he said, they were mutually contradictory. I'm assuming they released him from the latter because, in addition to his actions toward the Jews, he changed a law that required anyone accused of theft of more than 300 solidi (a Roman, gold coin) should be tried by ordeal in boiling water to anyone accused of any theft of any amount of money; and published laws which allowed slave masters to mutilate runaway slaves.

But, hey, he cut taxes!

In Germany, today is known as Schicksalstag, the "Day of Fate." Several important events happened on this day:

• In 1848, after being arrested in the Vienna revolts, liberal leader Robert Blum was executed. The execution is often seen as a symbolic event for the ultimate failure of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
• In 1918, the monarchy in Germany ended when Emperor Wilhelm II is dethroned in the November Revolution. Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the Weimar Republic
• In 1923, the Beer Hall Putsch marked the emergence of the Nazi Party as an important player on Germany's political landscape.
• In 1925, the SS was established.
• In 1938, on Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass", synagogues and Jewish property were burned and destroyed on a large scale. More than 1,300 Jews were killed. For many observers, it was the first hint of Nazi Germany's radical antisemitic policies. These poems are the remembrance of one survivor of the night, and ensuing 12 years.
• Finally, in 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall ended German separation and started a series of events that ultimately lead to the German reunification.

And, connected with German history, today is the day Neville Chamberlain died. He remains one of the most reviled leaders of all time, perceived as weak by contemporaries and historians. During the push to invade Iraq, his name was consistently invoked by supporters of the plan, not wanting to allow Hussein to become a second Hitler. Hitler himself, after the signing of the Munich Pact, said:

If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers.

However, I defer to Chamberlain's successor Winston Churchill, one of the most celebrated leaders of all time, to give the last word:

It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart--the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour.

Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.