All Things in Moderation

1998 – The Canadian Supremes rule that Quebec cannot unilaterally secede from the Federation. And Canada isn’t even a Union!

1968 – As Czechoslovakian protests against the Soviet Union mount during the course of what will come to be known as Prague Spring, 200,000 Soviet troops cross the border into Czechoslovakia and head to the capitolto crush the protests and reassert Soviet control. Within two days the entire nation is occupied, and further protests are violently put down. The Soviet intervention puts a new chill into US-Soviet relations as President Johnson cancels his planned trip to the USSR.

1940 – Leon Trotsky is attacked in his Mexico City home-in-exile by ice axe weilding Ramon Mercader, a Spanish communist. He will die the next day from his wounds. A founding member of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky had lost the power struggle to succeed Lenin as the head of the Soviet Union upon Lenin’s death. He became the object of Stalin’s persecution, including being expelled from the Soviet Union, which culminated several assassination attempts, the last of which finally proved successful.

1858 – Charles Darwin published the theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. This became one of the two cornerstones of modern biology and denying it remains a popular pastime.

1000 – This is National Day in Hungary. Supposedly King Stephen founded the state in 1000. I (MIA) have visited St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna but I did not know this was the same Stephen. Stephen was declared a saint in 1087 on this day, as well.

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