…and are now in placed above the kitchen table, just the way they were set out to be. Still wonder if the result would have been different last week, but I will not argue on this one. You need to pick your fights well and not for the sake of it, a wise man told me once and believe it or not - I listened.

Rather cold this morning but cleared up this afternoon and all the autumn colors were shining stong in the afternoon sun.

1st November 1604, the tradgedy Othello (by William Shakespeare) , the Moor of Venice was presented for the first time, at  Whitehall Palace in London. This play is still very popular and still performed considering that racism, love, jealousy, and betrayal are valid even today, 400 years later.

In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte invades Austria during the War of the Third Coalition and in 1870, the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast.

On the 1st November 1993, the Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union and the creation of the Euro currency.  The Treaty is also know as the pillar structure of the European Union and divides it into the European Community (EC) pillar, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar, and the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) pillar. Since 2007 it is simplyfied into EU only.

Today in Ireland the Samhain - the traditional first day of the winter is celebrated. Samhain finalized the end of the harvest, the end of the “lighter half” of the year and beginning of the “darker half”. Many believe that it was the beginning of the Celtic year and has some elements of a festival of the dead.  The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks, was an attempt to copy the evil spirits or placate them.^[1] The Gaelic festival became associated with the Christian All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, and has hugely influenced the secular customs now connected with Halloween.

So long all Saints…

/S