History of the Day: 10/5

Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar on this day in 1582, it and the following nine days do not exist in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain. My hypothesis is that, like the surplus grace that the Roman Catholic Church sold as indulgences, there are ten days lying somewhere in the Vatican that could be used. Perhaps they'll release them today, since it's International World Teacher's Day. Or, maybe they'll just send a card.

The first aerial combat resulting in a kill occurred on this day in 1914, during WWI. Here is a photograph:

In memoriam, here is the Guardsman singing Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.

Happy anniversary to Monty Python's Flying Circus which first aired on this day in 1969. They give some good advice in these dark times. (It's the only one of their songs I could find that wouldn't get me fired.)

Denis Diderot, Enlightenment philosophe and father of the Encyclopedia, was born on this day in 1713. He had no great love for the Church or the State, saying:

May we plait the guts of the last priest go strangle the last king.

Eeeek!

Before there was William Hung, of American Idol infamy, there was Ms. Miller, born on this day in 1907. You have to hear her to truly appreciate her.

Colin Meloy, lead singer for the unbelievably awesome band The Decemberists, was born on this day in 1974. What other band are you going to find that has lyrics like these:

There's an island hidden in the sound
Lapping currents lay your boat to ground
Fix your barb and bayonets
The curve is carved there arabesque
And sorrow fills the silence all around
You come and see

Or these:

And under the boughs unbowed
all clothed in the snowy shroud
She had no heart so hardened
All under the boughs unbowed

Or even these (one of the greatest love songs of all time):

There are angels in your angles
There's a low moon caught in your tangles
There's a ticking at the sill
There's a purr of a pigeon to break the still of day

I can't say enough good about them. So, I'll move on to Tecumseh, the Shawnee leader, who died on this day in 1813. Having become tired of the repeated breaking of treaties, Tecumseh and his brother, Tenskwatawa, rejected the European-Americans, their ways and their lies. In September 1809, William Henry Harrison, governor of the newly formed Indiana Territory, negotiated the Treaty of Fort Wayne in which a delegation of half-starved Indians ceded 3 million acres tribal lands to the United States. Harrison was under orders from Washington to negotiate with Indians that claimed the lands that they were ceding. However, he disregarded these orders, as none of the Indians he met with lived on the lands that they ceded. He said:

Governor Harrison, you have the liberty to return to your own country ... you wish to prevent the Indians from doing as we wish them, to unite and let them consider their lands as common property of the whole ... You never see an Indian endeavor to make the white people do this ... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children? How can we have confidence in the white people?

Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa, and those natives allied with them rejected the treaty and, to make a long story short, Harrison defeated the brothers at the battle of Tippecanoe and later, during the War of 1812, Tecumseh was killed. However, before he died, he (allegedly) cursed Harrison and all future presidents elected in years which ended in a zero. Harrison died one month into office. He was followed by Lincoln (1860), Garfield (1880), McKinley (1900), Harding (1920), FDR (1940), and Kennedy (1960). There was an attempted assassination on Reagan (1980), but he survived, supposedly breaking the curse. However, during the term of Bush Jr. (2000), the economy died. Maybe it's not the fault of the Republicans OR Democrats. Maybe we're just suffering from Tecumseh's Curse.

Finally, today is the ancient, Roman festival of Mundus Patet, a harvest festival involving the dead. They would open the door to the Mundus, the underworld, and it was believed that:

When the mundus is open, it is as if a door stands open for the sorrowful gods of the underworld.

There were good and bad Roman ghosts. The good ones were called lares or genius, the spirits of home and garden. The evil ones were called larvae and lemures, from which we get the names of the grubs (who just look creepy) and lemurs (with reflective eyes) who share their names.