“I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.”
Charles Darwin (Autobiography)
Charles Darwin was born this day 199 years ago.
Happy new year 2008 to everyone!
This and the previous six posts are best read in in chronological order.
Smoke on the water – and over an entire city…
A few numbers: 1944: 282, 246246, 1200 → 62, 6500, 1000, 10.
What do these numbers mean, you ask?
On 4 December 1944, 282 British bombers dropped in one of the most severe air raids of World War II 246246 bombs with a total weight of about 1200 tonnes on Heilbronn – where I was born and lived for a long time –, destroying 62% of the city and killing presumably 6500 people, inluding about 1000 children under the age of 10.
And the umpteen millions of other victims of this war should not be left unmentioned…
(Numbers from Wikipedia.)
Oh, and on 4 Dec 1971, the casino in Montreux burned down during a Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention concert, inspiring Deep Purple to Smoke on the Water.
Head, Oscar, Captain in Paris, Dublin, Köpenick
Disney, Grass, Erhard in Burbank, Danzig, Bonn
Atoms, Karol, Tutu in China, Vatican, Nobel
1793, 1854, 1906
1923, 1927, 1963
1964, 1978, 1984
Trial, Hower, Rail in Paris, Texas, Japan
Bear, Roger, Overthrow in Book, London, Moscow
King, Swedes, Bing in Nobel, Germany, Heaven
1793, 1872, 1890
1926, 1927, 1964
1964, 1974, 1977