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.