Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the "New World" on this day in 1492, claiming the island of Guanahani for Spain, and calling it San Salvador. The world was changed, if not by the thrust of that staff at least by the events it precipitated, and this is demonstrated in today's Holidays section. Some days I have to stretch to find a holiday, today I'm including four and left out at least four others. As you can see, the date is celebrated throughout Latin America (and the state of Maryland) for different reasons.
Today marks the signing of the fourth and final Magna Carta in England, Luther stood before a Dominican cardinal sent to "examine" him at Augsburg, and an English nurse was shot by a German firing squad in World War I.
One of the most often mentioned events of the Cold War, blurring into the status of legend, was part of a protest by the Soviet delegation to the UN on this day in 1960. From my youth I recall hearing many times of the Soviet delegation walking out in protest, but this was the one that everyone remembers. For one thing, it involved the Soviet Premier. For another, it involved his shoe. I've let Premier Khrushchev have the final word in the quotations today.
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1297 - Edward I of England confirmed the final Magna Carta. The original was forced upon King John in 1215, when his son Henry III took the throne in 1217 (at the age of nine) his regents reissued it, Henry issued another draft on assuming personal control in 1225, and his son Edward signed and confirmed this longest version.
1518 - Cardinal Thomas Cajetan, a Dominican dispatched by Pope Leo X to examine German reformer Martin Luther regarding the 95 Theses posted at Wittenberg the year before, demanded that Luther recant of his opposition to indulgences, promise to abstain from them in the future, and to abstain from doing anything further to disturb the church. Luther refused.
1915 - Edith Cavell, a 50-year-old English nurse at the Birkendael Medical Institute in Brussels, Belgium, was shot by a German firing squad after a conviction for espionage by a German court martial. As head of nursing she supervised the treatment of wounded of both sides, but also allowed this school for the training of nurses to become a stop on an underground railway for British soldiers attempting to return to England.
1960 - As the Soviet delegation to the United Nations was walking out in a protest, Premier Nikita Khruschev repeatedly yelled "we will bury you" to the US delegation, punctuating his exclamations by pounding on a desk with his shoe.
Discovery Day, Bahamas - Celebrates Columbus' first landfall on the island of San Salvador. No holiday for the Lucayan tribe of Arawaks who lived there at the time, in the next 25 years all 50,000 of them had died or been shipped out as slaves.
Nossa Senhora de Aparecida - Our Lady Who Appeared, Brazil - On this day in 1717 three fisherman had spent the night on the Paraiba River with no fish to show for it. As they neared port at dawn the body of a clay statue of the Madonna appeared in their net. Casting out again, the head was recovered. On the next cast they brought up so many fish as to risk sinking the boat. Robed and crowned and displayed in her own basilica, the statue made about 1650 by Frei Agostino de Jesus is queen and patroness of Brazil. She is visited by five million pilgrims every year, 330,000 attended her on this day alone in 1999.
Columbus Day, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, the state of Maryland, Puerto Rico - Commemorates Columbus' landing at San Salvador Island in The Bahamas in 1492. It was designated a national holiday in the US in 1892, and most US states still observe it on the second Monday of October.
El Dia de la Raza - Day of the Race or Day of the Encounter, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela - Commemorates the landfall of Columbus and the beginning of "La Nueva Raza." Very political and confused. The very beginning of the "nuevo raza" called "mestizo," Spanish for mixed, was the result of the rape of indigenous women by Spanish adventurers and soldiers. Many younger members of these communities don't understand why they are called Hispanic or Latino, Euro-centric labels, when the mixture comprised less than 200,000 Spaniards and 20 million natives.
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge where
there is no river.
- Nikita Khrushchev
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!
- Nikita Khrushchev
I once said, "We will bury you," and I got into trouble with it. Of course
we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.
- Nikita Khrushchev
If you start throwing hedgehogs under me, I shall throw a couple of porcupines
under you.
- Nikita Khrushchev
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