2 October is the International Day of Non-Violence, building upon Mahatma Ghandi’s birth day in 1869.
On the one hand, 2 October marks the birth of two military titans from the Great War, Marshall Foch and Field Marshal von Hindenburg. On the other, 2 October marks the birth of Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of State who received the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in establishing the UN.
Ghandi was nominated for the prize in 1948 but was assassinated before nominations closed.
The madness of war has always been the target of comics. In 1933, between the two world wars, the Marx Brothers made Duck Soup. War arrives after Groucho’s Rufus T Firefly reacts to a non-existent slight from an ambassador by rejecting the ambassador’s peace proposal before it is made. Groucho was born on 2 October 1890.
