History of the Day: 11/8

Rickie Lee Jones is 54 today. Apparently, she hasn't had enough yet.

On this day in 1519, Moctezuma met with Hernan Cortes. It is thought that Moctezuma believed Cortes was Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god of the Aztecs. Neil Young wrote a song about the meeting, including the lines:

Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones.

Ooookaaaay. At the meeting, Moctezuma gave Cortes two calendars, one of gold and one of silver, which the conquistador promptly melted down (see the date in Aztec here). Perhaps this is because this calendar, which is closely aligned with the Mayan calendar, says that the world will end in 2012. That is, by the way, the next presidential election. So I can only assume this means one thing (insert ominous music here):

PRESIDENT TOM CRUISE!!!!

On this day in 1937, Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) opened in Munich. This propaganda film was meant to further inflame the already general anti-Semitic Germans (really, all Europeans) into fury against the "cause" of their troubles. This excerpt contains the iconic scene juxtaposing images of rats with Jews. The title was taken from a medieval legend about the Wandering Jew who, after ridiculing Jesus on the way to be crucified, was condemned to wander the world until the Second Coming. Of course, that legend was in turn based on the belief that St. John would live until the Second Coming. Germans had to put a spin on that one, too.

In a Time Life Mysteries Exclusive, I present the harrowing tale of 3,100 voters who, right before the 2004 elections, mysteriously were able to register to vote in Ohio on this day in 1977. This tale of time-travel and obvious mind-control is evidence that we are being controlled by aliens. Perhaps Tom Cruise's VP will be Denis Kucinich?

Happy birthday to medieval mystic and anchorite Julian of Norwich. To be an anchorite means she had been walled into a church permanently with only a window. She had a series of visions which she wrote about in her Revelations of Divine Love. In one poignant passage, she wrote:

And in þis he shewed me a lytil thyng þe quantite of a hasyl nott. lyeng in þe pawme of my hand as it had semed. and it was as rownde as eny ball. I loked þer upon wt þe eye of my vnderstondyng. and I þought what may þis be. and it was answered generally thus. It is all þat is mad.

In this lytyll thyng I sawe thre propertees.
The fyrst is. þt god made it.
þe secunde is þet god louyth it.
& þe þrid is. þat god kepith it.

What, you don't understand?

He showed me a little thing, the size of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked on it with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered: It is all that is made.

In this Little Thing I saw three properties.
The first is that God made it,
the second is that God loves it,
the third, that God keeps it.

Aside from seeing the world in a nut, she also saw God both as Father and Mother:

I saw that God rejoiceth that He is our Father,
and God rejoiceth that He is our Mother,
and God rejoiceth that He is our Very Spouse
and our soul is His loved Wife.

However, her most famous quote is this:

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Quaker Sydney Carter transformed this phrase into a song about the saint:

Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go.
Here by the tower of Julian, I tell them what I know.

Ring out, bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go
All shell be well again, I know.

Love, like the yellow daffodil, is coming through the snow.
Love, like the yellow daffodil, is Lord of all I know.

Ring for the yellow daffodil, the flower in the snow.
Ring for the yellow daffodil, and tell them what I know.

All shall be well, I'm telling you, let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.

Another Catholic woman, Dorothy Day, was born on this day in 1897. She formed the Catholic Workers Movement which had a great impact on the RCC. She said:

Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.

OUCH! John Milton, another person who shook up the Church and the State with his writings, died on this day in 1674. He is primarily known for his masterwork, Paradise Lost. Interestingly, the main character is Lucifer. You're introduced to him in Hell for, as Milton says:

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.

So Lucifer carried:

The Hell within him, for within him Hell he brings,

Why? He couldn't take that all creatures are dependent on the Creator, so he had rebelled, saying that he and his fellow angels were self-created and self-sustaining. But, in Hell:

Here at least
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

In addition to that line, Milton is also known for coining the phrase, "All Hell broke loose." Here are some other, notable lines:

Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.

Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is

The poem inspired many an artist, including Salvador Dali, William Blake, Gustav Dore, and even this political cartoon.

John Duns Scotus; a medieval, Scottish philosopher, died on this day in 1308. Although he had a profound effect on his contemporaries, he began to be reviled during the Reformation and Enlightenment. Eventually, his name, Duns, came to mean someone who can't think, which is where we get our word "dunce." And the dunce cap? He believed that wearing conical hats (like wizards) would help funnel knowledge into one's head. One might ask how he died. And if one did, I would answer that (according to legend), his students stabbed him to death with their pens for "making them think." Thus, I dub him patron saint of public school teachers!

Finally, Doc Holiday of Tombstone fame passed on this day in 1887. He was a dentist until he discovered he could make more money gambling. He had a woman, named Big Nosed Kate (not kidding). And his last words?

Well, I'll be damned. This is funny.

Truer words have never been spoken.