History is beyond the words creating it…

It's Thor's day . . .

On this day in 1941, Japanese bombers launched a surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, precipitating the entry of the United States into World War II.

Today is also the day in 1941 that Adolf Hitler issued his Night and Fog Decree, a secret order for the arrest and execution of “persons endangering German security.”

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

Santayana's aphorism assumes humans are capable of reason in the face of history. History itself, however, seems to indicate otherwise.

It's Willa Cather’s birthdate. The author was born near Winchester, Virginia today in1873.

"Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years." – Willa Cather, O Pioneers! Vintage, 1991 (first published in 1913).