NOVEMBER 11 — KURT VONNEGUT
Beloved American novelist, sardonic social critic.

NOVEMBER 11 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
U.S.: VETERAN’S DAY. MARTINMAS, one of four “quarter days” in Old
England when rents were paid. As celebration and consolation there
was feasting and drinking. Was also called “TEAR-STOMACH DAY.”Martin
was the patron of beggars, tavern keepers and wine growers, proba-
bly because his day coincides with the ancient “FEAST OF DIONYSUS.”
Netherlands: ELEVEN ELEVEN ELEVEN DAY.Tradition says
eleven is the number of fools. On the 11th day of the 11th month a
council of 11 begins organizing the next year’s carnival, “so anyone
can be as foolish as he or she cares to be for those three days.”

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 11 IN HISTORY
1647 — First American compulsory school law passed, Massachusetts.
1821 — Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky born, Moscow, Russia.
1831 — American slave rebellion leader Nat Turner hanged, Jerusalem, Virginia.
1880 — American feminist Lucretia Mott dies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1887 — Haymarket martyrs executed, Chicago, Illinois.
1922 — American novelist Kurt Vonnegut born, Indianapolis, Indiana.
1942 — Jimi Hendrix, rock guitar wizard, born, Seattle, Washington.
1989 — Civil Rights Memorial dedicated in Montgomery, Alabama.
2004 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dies; succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective