Well, it's a big day, if your name happens to be Gaius Julius Caesar. And it's 49 BC. It's on this date that he crosses the proverbial Rubicon by crossing the Rubicon. And just that quickly, Rome is in a civil war. The Rubicon, you see, is a river in Italy, and the Romans considered it to be the dividing line between "Italy" and "Cisalpine Gual". When Caesar was north of the river, he was in Gaul, which was the area where he was supposed to be- and where his authority as a general and political leader was. On the south side of the river, however, was the Roman homeland. And he had no authority to take his army into Italy. Therefore, by doing so he clearly signaled his intention to make war on the City itself. It's kind of similar to how the US Army is banned by laws known as Posse Comitatus from being used by local authorities for law enforcement purposes within the US. So, to continue our example, if the governor of California tried to use the Army troops within the State limits to enforce local laws, that would be a violation of law. If he was trying to use those forces to remove federal officials from State limits, then he too would have crossed the Rubicon. Only in the proverbial sense, not literally like Caesar did. In 49 BC. On this date.
Jumping ahead to another (impending in this instance) republic, it's on this date in 1776 that Thomas Paine publishes a little pamphlet he calls "Common Sense". In it, he lays out an argument for independence. Think Harry Potter is popular? Relative to population, this little work has the highest sales in the history of the US. Basically, everyone who could read, read it. Those who couldn't read it, had it read to them. He tossed in a lot of references to the Bible, and wrote it like he was preaching a sermon. People understood that better than they would have if he'd written "cogito ergo sum" or something. Of course, that would have been plagiarizing Descartes, and also would have been irrelevant. At any rate, while people in America were literate, they were not deep thinkers, basing much of their conduct on the Bible (which is not intended as a criticism, it's just an observation). Lest you think that Paine got rich as J.K. Rowling off of it, he didn't. He donated the proceeds to the Continental Army. Which is interesting, since I recall reading once that Rowling said, while sitting on a pile of money, no doubt, that Britain needed to do more for single moms. Which is ironic, of course- she worked and used her talents, and presumably got off the dole by her own actions. As always, I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin'.
In 1920, the Treaty of Versailles goes into effect. Yeah. That's gonna end well. A fascinating cartoon that I've seen depicts all the smug politicians coming out of the room, congratulating themselves on their accomplishment. And one of them says something about hearing a sound like a baby cry. In a corner of the cartoon is a baby, labeled "class of 1940" and the baby is weeping. And this was a contemporary cartoon, so the artist, whose name escapes me, was quite a prophet. The treaty brings forth the League of Nations, which will end all wars.
Speaking of ending all wars, in 1946 the United Nations first meets. What a load of crap that turned out to be. Even when they're actually trying to "end wars", they do it by sending in troops who then rape, murder and loot the locals. Mostly rape, and the younger the victims the better. You get a higher price when you sell a young girl than you do if you sell her mom. But hey, lots of high level bureaucrats that work for the UN have gotten rich from bribery and payoffs, so I guess that's a good thing. And they look really impressive in their blue helmets when they stand next to terrorists in Lebanon as the latter murder Israelis. (Which has happened, btw). On the other hand, the UN has proven very successful at taking money from the US and giving it to themselves.
And I guess that's all the news that interests me. Enjoy.
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