Monday 9 November 2020

world freedom day

Rather presumptively first proclaimed by George W. Bush on this day in 2001 (sort of like rededicating Armistice Day as Veterans’ Day, also positing that the alternative was the right and only one)—reaffirmed by several US presidential administrations—as an homage to the idea that Ronald Reagan’s policies were solely responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the influence it held over central and eastern Europe as the anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, though the commandeering of the holiday is not widely observed. Because the date coincides with Schicksalstag (the Day of Fate), witness to many pivotal events including the execution of liberal leader Robert Blรผm which suppressed the democratic revolution of 1849, the abdication of the Kaiser following the November Revolution of 1918, Albert Einstein’s win of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922, the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, the 1938 Reichspogromnacht which saw the large-scale destruction of Jewish property and of course the wall coming down (German reunification not celebrated on this day because of the prior associations). The German Sprachraum instead marks this day as Inventor’s Day—in homage to Austrian actor and Erfinderin Hedy Lamarr (*1914 - †2000) for her discovery of frequency hopping that led to cellular telephony and Bluetooth technology.