It’s taken me two years to get to write about these. Last year I got side-swiped by something that was clearly urgent and important at the time, but was apparently trivial in the long run because I can’t remember it at all now.
These two events, however, we still remember. It seems appropriate they happen on Halloween.
The Ending of The Battle of Britian, 1940
The Battle of Britain was a vicious World War II German airforce campaign primarily aimed to bomb Britain into submission. In short, it failed, and it was the first German failure of the war and marked the turning of the war.
After months of British cities being nightly bombed, and British people cowering in air raid shelters, train stations and tunnels, the silence that ensued on Halloween and onwards must have been eirie indeed….
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Magician Harry Houdini died, 1926
Harry Houdini 
was an escape artist, magician and actor. He also spent a large part of his career debunking fake spiritualists, which makes his death on Halloween all the more ironic.
There was no mystery around his death, but there was some controversy. He died of perotinitus from a burst appendix, when a Montreal student hit him in the abdomen several times before he had a chance to brace himself for the blows. However, Houdini was already suffering from the effects of appendicitis, so the blows themselves may have only hastened the end, as he had refused medical attention for two or three days.
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Have a great Halloween, everyone!