Here's your late Today in History:
On this date in 1792 (or 1799), there was baptised in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, a boy named Francisco Morazàn. He was young, like most newborns, and full of idealism. After a disappointing childhood, in which he turned out not to have been born to wealth and privilege, he decided first to educate himself and then to enlist in the fight against Mexican annexation of Honduras.
After a disappointing loss, in which Honduras turned out to be a part of Mexico even though neither of them was any longer a part of Spain, Morazàn joined the government of the United Provinces of Central America. Two years later he was the president of the Honduras State legislature, and the following year he became president of the entire United Provinces by means of the traditional Central American electoral process ("civil war").
As president, he tried to limit the powers of the Roman Catholic Church, which eventually led to a new round of elections ("civil wars") that produced a new president, this time from the State of Guatemala. The new president exiled Morazàn, who returned several years later calling for electoral reform ("revolution") and was therefore impeached ("shot in the head") by one of his own troops.
It's a holiday in Honduras today.
It is not a holiday in Guatemala.
Or Mexico.
Also, Deposed French queen Joséphe Jeanne Marie Antoinette sits in an open cart, enduring hours of public ridicule as she is slowly driven around the streets of Paris, on this day in 1793. Finally, she is taken to the guillotine. Before she loses her head, Antoinette tells the crowd: "Farewell, my children, forever. I go to your Father."
She wasn't having a good day.
It's also the birthday of Oscar Wilde (1854), known for his barbed wit, was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. In between bouts of buggery, he found time to write the following passage in The Picture of Dorian Gray: "Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different." Unfortunately for Oscar, had he fled England in the spring of 1895, his history would have been different.
I believe that cavemen did indeed know how to laugh, and that people who accuse humanity of being too serious obviously aren't paying attention. Voluminous scientific research has incontrovertibly proven that we are the only species to giggle at one other's farts.
I reminds you that our lives are haphazard accidents in an indifferent world and that the very absurdity of life is what gives it the most meaning. Burp. Laugh. And ignore the serious bastards.
October 16, 1946 -
At Nuremberg, Germany, 10 high-ranking Nazi officials were executed by hanging for World War II war crimes. Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force, was to have been among them but he committed suicide in his cell the night before. That must have been some neck stretching party.
October 16, 1964 -
China detonated its first atomic bomb.
That will teach us all to tip the delivery guys a hell of a lot more.
October 16, 1972 -
A light plane carrying House Democratic leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana and three other men was reported missing in Alaska. The plane was never found. Perhaps if they had that bridge to nowhere, they would have found them.
October 16, 1984 -
Black Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa won the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle against apartheid. Sometimes, the good guys win.
And so it goes
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