Today in 1838: Emma Wedgwood and Charles Darwin became engaged. That’s what is at the core of November 11 for me. It’s the thing that holds all the rest of the pieces together.

I have a day off work today. Ostensibly this is to honor those that are dead in war. All week last week, and for the first part of this week, there have been old men in uniform with paper-covered cans and red plastic poppies camping in the corners of work-a-day high-rises quietly asking for money and to be remembered.

Here are some of the things I remember.

In 1813: the “Capitulation of the city of Dresden.” The article second states: “All the prisoners of war of the Allied Powers who are actually in Dresden, will be restored to liberty immediately after the capitulation shall be signed. They are considered as exchanged.” Signed November 11, 1813 by Baron de Rothkirely, Colonel and Chief of the Staff in the 4th division and Colonel Murawiew at Herzogswalde.

1503: Julius II is elected Pope (with much passing of wealth). He’s crowned on the 28th. He’s the guy who got Michaelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel. He’s also the guy who led an army to invade Umbria, the guy with at least three  illegitimate  children, and the one who beat his subordinates with a cane.

1620: The Mayflower Compact is signed. It says: “Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.” 41 people of the original boatload of immigrants signed the Compact.

1778: The Cherry Valley Massacre where some British and Seneca guys killed 44 non-Native American soldiers and civilians. The previous year the non-Native Americans had attacked several Native American (Iroquois) villages. The press (non Native-American controlled) recounted the “barbarities” of the Cherry Valley Massacre, without mention of the earlier (non-Native American led) attacks/massacres. The consequence was the Sullivan Expedition whose sole purpose was to destroy the Iroquois. At least 40 Native American villages and their inhabitants were wiped out.

1865: Mary Edwards Walker was awarded the Medal of Honor. She was one heck of a person. She couldn’t vote because she was a woman but she became the first recognized female army surgeon. She fought for the Union side of that particular contretemps. Like any good liberal she fought for things like health care, feminism and abolition.

1831: Nat Turner is hanged. He was the slave and Christian prophet who led a slave rebellion that killed 55 white people. He was hanged, then flayed, beheaded and quartered.

1634: An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery is passed by the Irish House of Commons. The “vice” became, thereby, a felony. In 1952, Alan Turing was convicted (not on November 11) for the vice of gross indecency (what it had become called by then) and given the choice between imprisonment and chemical castration. He died of the devastation this caused some two years later, most probably by suicide. It wasn’t until September 10, 2009 that the British people issued an apology, in the voice of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

There’s lots more of course and all these things take a part in what it is to be November 11. But what acts as a lynch pin for me is the engagement of Emma Wedgwood and Charles Darwin.

Why?

I’m not sure. Maybe because their connection speaks about what can come to be, what can be accommodated in human society – their religious differences, for example. But I think more than that, it has to do with how their partnership enabled what they were to give to us in the form of Charles’ most famous book. I think that’s it.  Some meetings of difference in human history are truly fruitful even if most are full of pain and rage.