History belongs to the victor and for the victor, a nation is a land where all the people are governed by the same government. The difficulty with this definition is that many peoples comprising history have steadfastly declined to be defined in such a way. 15 November is an apt day to celebrate this delicate… Continue reading #OTD 15 November – Nations within nations
Category: The Calendar
#OTD 14 November – The rippling effect of Alexander, Egypt and the Nile
Herodotus called Egypt “the gift of the Nile” and the ancient Afro-Asian nation founded upon the mighty river has fascinated for millennia. The Guinness Book of Records has 14 November 1152 BC as the world’s first recorded strike. From what fragments there are, it appears that on this day, the artisans attached to the royal… Continue reading #OTD 14 November – The rippling effect of Alexander, Egypt and the Nile
#OTD 13 November
US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was born on 13 November 1856. His prevailing legacy is a concern for what he called “the curse of bigness” and doubtless his role as a co-inventor of the right to privacy will sustain his legacy for some time. That said, the mantle of “progressive” rests uneasy with the… Continue reading #OTD 13 November
#OTD 12 November
For centuries, the words “net” and “web” had involved the idea of capture. All this has changed in the Age of Information. In 1969 man landed on the moon and computer scientists sent the first message over what we now call the net. The word was meant to be “LOGIN”, the system crashed after two… Continue reading #OTD 12 November
#OTD 11 November – Lest we forget
The word “armistice” appears to have been coined by the French in the 17th century from the Latin words for “arms” and for “standing still”. The latter also gets into “solstice”, for when the sun seems to stand still. The Great War armistice was initially for 36 days and concluded: The present armistice was signed on the… Continue reading #OTD 11 November – Lest we forget
#OTD 10 November – A tale of two Churchills
“Celebrity” meaning being famous may have been invented by the 14th century poet Chaucer in his translation of a late Latin poem. It wouldn’t surprise me because he chose the same work to invent the word “twitter”. Fame lasts until you are forgotten. Celebrity is more ephemeral and a bit too popular, summed up well… Continue reading #OTD 10 November – A tale of two Churchills
#OTD 9 November – The benefit of the exchequer
Money and the Jew is a dark trope pervading western thought. The Anglophone world celebrates Shakespeare, whose moneylender Shylock seeks his pound of flesh, and reveres the Magna Carta, whose original clauses included relief from Jewish moneylenders. Intertwined with the trope is the recurring theme of rulers exploiting popular suspicion in order to shore up… Continue reading #OTD 9 November – The benefit of the exchequer
#OTD 8 November – Grandeur as glory’s redux
The new doesn’t always shake off the old. That the Hellenic world yielded to rising Rome at Actium, that Great Britain yielded to the nascent US at Yorktown, or that France yielded to the insular Great Britain at Waterloo, did not mean that the old disappeared. Roman nobles still sent sons to study in Athens,… Continue reading #OTD 8 November – Grandeur as glory’s redux
#OTD 7 November – The enigma of Russia
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. This was the theme of Winston Churchill’s first wartime broadcast on the BBC. Ideological enemies Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia had just signed… Continue reading #OTD 7 November – The enigma of Russia
#OTD 6 November – Prison is not a good place
6 November is the feast day for not one but two saints whose patronage includes prisoners. St Demetrian of Cyprus died around AD 912 but is well remembered in his land for pleading desperately and successfully to Saracen invaders who were removing Christian captives to lives of slavery in Baghdad. St Leonard of Noblac died… Continue reading #OTD 6 November – Prison is not a good place