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Forwarded from History (🅱️ 🎃)
November 9 is known informally as Schicksalstag (Day of Fate) in Germany. Oddly, a number of highly significant events in German history have happened on this day.
Forwarded from History (🅱️ 🎃)
The notable ones include -
-The execution of Robert Blum in 1848, marking the beginning of the end of the 1848-49 German Revolutions.
-Proclamation of the end of the monarchy, 1918.
-The attempted Beer Hall Putsch of the Nazis, 1923, the failure of which would lead Hitler to aim for a democratic victory.
-The antisemetic pogrom Kristallnacht, 1938, that many see as the start of the Holocaust.
-The fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989.
Krampusnacht in Mitterndorf, Austria (1949).
Krampus is an old alpine folk creature that seems to have arisen out of various pagan traditions, and been mixed with the Christian devil. He comes out just before the Feast of St. Nicholas and swats naughty children with his birch branches. And later, on Christmas Eve, he return, puts them in his basket, and vanishes...
History
Krampusnacht in Mitterndorf, Austria (1949). Krampus is an old alpine folk creature that seems to have arisen out of various pagan traditions, and been mixed with the Christian devil. He comes out just before the Feast of St. Nicholas and swats naughty children…
Krampus has not been popular; Krampus traditions were repressed by the church and by Austrian fascism because of their pagan roots. In the 1950s, it was speculated that he may harm the mental health of children, and pamphlets were distributed warning parents about him. Nonetheless, Krampus perseveres.
Forwarded from History (Tau'ma)
It is the night of the Winter Solstice. This night has much significance in European folklore as a time of ritual, fear, and hope.
The Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession of men and beasts led by Odin, prefer this time most of all. Any unwary traveller caught in its path will meet their doom, although in some tellings Odin is only out to capture some maidens or elves.
This time is also associated with an increase in draugr activity, so be careful.
Partial source
Zuni people (a north American Pueblo group) mark the solstice with a sacred dance called the Shalako, which involves people dressed as towering figures. (Image: Ma-Pe-Wi, c.1920
Forwarded from History (Tau'ma)
A 'Mari Lwyd' (Thomas Evans, Llangynwyd, Wales, 1904-10).
This strange Welsh custom involves a horse skull being held on a stick, with a sheet hanging down, to create a sort of hobby-horse. A person stands inside. The horse then goes wassailing (an old form of carol singing). The person visited traditionally refuses the horse entry, before giving in and letting it and its companions inside to have food.
The origins, and even the meaning of the name, remain a mystery.
The three Biblical magi Balthazar, Caspar, and Melchior as depicted by Herrad of Landsberg (France, 1185) and reproduced by Christian Maurice Engelhardt (1818).
The true identities of the Biblical Magi, whose visit to baby Jesus is celebrated on Epiphany, is not known. Their traditional names originate from a lost 6th century Greek manuscript - other Christian groups call them different names, such as Syrians, who call them Larvandad, Gushnasaph, and Hormisdas. A Chinese tradition holds that one of them was from China.
The historicity of the story is debated. It seems possible that the story was more one laced with symbolism, foreshadowing, and allegory than one based on reality. For example, myrrh was frequently used in burial practices at the time - a hint of the fate of the baby they were visiting.
Forwarded from History (Tau'ma)
January 25 1911: Kanno Sugako is executed in Japan for her part in a plot to assassinate Emperor Meiji.
She was radicalised as a teenager after being raped, and finding mental support for this within the socialist movement. She strongly advocated for equal rights for men and women and deplored the terrible state of the working class in Japan.
Before her execution, she became an anarcha-feminist.

Her reflections written before her death can be read here.
80 years ago on January 27th, 1945, the Red Army came across Auschwitz.

Primo Levi describes the moment:
"They were four young soldiers on horseback, who advanced along the road that marked the limits of the camp, cautiously holding their sten-guns. When they reached the barbed wire they stopped to look, exchanging a few timid words, and throwing strangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, and the battered huts and at us few still alive. To us they seemed wonderfully concrete and real, perched on their enormous horses, between the grey of the snow and the grey of the sky, immobile beneath the gusts of damp wind which threatened the thaw."

Many of the inmates at both Auschwitz I, II (Birkenau), III (Monowitz, where Levi was), and the various other subcamps, were near death, because most of the stronger inmates had been evacuated in order to work in camps further from the frontline.

(Photo: Henryk Makarewicz)
Today it is Lunar New Year. In China it is the year of the snake. The snake is associated with cunning, intelligence, and charm.

Image source
Advert for the 'Bantam Units' - used during WWI by the British, these units consisted of men 5ft to 5'3", who were too small for ordinary service.
Forwarded from History (Tau'ma)
22 February 1943: Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Munich for distributing anti-war leaflets as part of the Weiße Rose (White Rose) group. They were aged 21, 25, and 23 respectively.
2025/10/21 10:12:41
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