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Authors: Eduardo Galeano
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red-faced Xerxes admitted, âMy men have become women, and my women men!â
Meanwhile, far from there, a boy named Herodotus had his fifth birthday.
Some time later, he would tell this story.
September 20
F EMALE C HAMPIONS
In the year 2003 the fourth Womenâs World Cup took place.
At the end of the tournament, the Germans were the champions. In 2007 they won the world trophy a second time.
It was no walk down the garden path.
From 1955 to 1970 soccer had been forbidden to German women.
The German Football Association explained why: âIn fighting for the ball feminine elegance vanishes, and both body and soul inevitably suffer damage. Displaying the body violates etiquette and decency.â
September 21
P ROPHET OF H IMSELF
Girolamo Cardano wrote treatises on algebra and medicine, found the solutions to several unsolvable equations, was the first to describe typhoid fever, researched the causes of allergies and invented several instruments still in use by navigators.
In his spare time he made prophecies.
When he did an astrological chart for Jesus of Nazareth that showed his fate had been written in the stars, the Holy Inquisition put him in prison.
Upon his release, Girolamo prophesied, âI shall die on September 21, 1576.â
From that moment, he stopped eating.
And he hit the mark.
September 22
C AR-FREE D AY
Today, for one day, environmentalists and other irresponsible people want automobiles to disappear from the world.
A day without cars? Suppose itâs contagious and that day becomes every day?
God doesnât want that and neither does the Devil.
Hospitals and cemeteries would lose their biggest clients.
The streets would be taken over by ridiculous cyclists and pathetic people on foot.
Lungs could no longer inhale the tastiest of poisons.
Feet, having forgotten how to walk, would trip over every pebble.
Silence would deafen all ears.
Highways would become depressing deserts.
Radio, television, magazines and newspapers would lose their most generous advertisers.
Oil-producing countries would face poverty.
Corn and sugar, now food for cars, would return to the humble human table.
September 23
S EAFARING
They called her the Mulata de Córdoba, and no one knows why. She was a mulatta, but she was born in the port of Veracruz and lived there always.
They said she was a witch. Back around the year 1600 or so, the touch of her hands cured the ill and crazed the healthy.
Suspecting that she was possessed by the Devil, the Holy Inquisition locked her up in the fort on the island of San Juan de Ulúa.
In her cell she found a coal left behind from some long-ago fire.
With that coal she started doodling on the wall and her hand, wanting to without wanting to, drew a ship. And the ship broke free of the wall and carried the prisoner to the open sea.
September 24
T HE I NVENTOR M AGICIAN
In the year 1912 Harry Houdini showed off his new trick at the Busch Circus in Berlin:
Â
                    The Chinese water torture cell!
                    The most original invention of all time!
It was a tank filled to the brim with water, then hermetically sealed after Houdini was lowered in upside down with his wrists and ankles shackled. Through glass, the audience could watch him under water, not breathing for what seemed like centuries, until the drowned man somehow managed to make his escape.
Houdini could not have known that many years later this form of asphyxiation would become the preferred torture of Latin Americaâs dictatorships, or the one most praised by the expert George W. Bush.
September 25
T HE I NQUISITIVE S AGE
Miguel Ignacio Lillo never went to college, but book by book he built a science library that filled his entire house.
On a day like today around 1915, a few students from Tucumán spent a long afternoon in that
Meanwhile, far from there, a boy named Herodotus had his fifth birthday.
Some time later, he would tell this story.
September 20
F EMALE C HAMPIONS
In the year 2003 the fourth Womenâs World Cup took place.
At the end of the tournament, the Germans were the champions. In 2007 they won the world trophy a second time.
It was no walk down the garden path.
From 1955 to 1970 soccer had been forbidden to German women.
The German Football Association explained why: âIn fighting for the ball feminine elegance vanishes, and both body and soul inevitably suffer damage. Displaying the body violates etiquette and decency.â
September 21
P ROPHET OF H IMSELF
Girolamo Cardano wrote treatises on algebra and medicine, found the solutions to several unsolvable equations, was the first to describe typhoid fever, researched the causes of allergies and invented several instruments still in use by navigators.
In his spare time he made prophecies.
When he did an astrological chart for Jesus of Nazareth that showed his fate had been written in the stars, the Holy Inquisition put him in prison.
Upon his release, Girolamo prophesied, âI shall die on September 21, 1576.â
From that moment, he stopped eating.
And he hit the mark.
September 22
C AR-FREE D AY
Today, for one day, environmentalists and other irresponsible people want automobiles to disappear from the world.
A day without cars? Suppose itâs contagious and that day becomes every day?
God doesnât want that and neither does the Devil.
Hospitals and cemeteries would lose their biggest clients.
The streets would be taken over by ridiculous cyclists and pathetic people on foot.
Lungs could no longer inhale the tastiest of poisons.
Feet, having forgotten how to walk, would trip over every pebble.
Silence would deafen all ears.
Highways would become depressing deserts.
Radio, television, magazines and newspapers would lose their most generous advertisers.
Oil-producing countries would face poverty.
Corn and sugar, now food for cars, would return to the humble human table.
September 23
S EAFARING
They called her the Mulata de Córdoba, and no one knows why. She was a mulatta, but she was born in the port of Veracruz and lived there always.
They said she was a witch. Back around the year 1600 or so, the touch of her hands cured the ill and crazed the healthy.
Suspecting that she was possessed by the Devil, the Holy Inquisition locked her up in the fort on the island of San Juan de Ulúa.
In her cell she found a coal left behind from some long-ago fire.
With that coal she started doodling on the wall and her hand, wanting to without wanting to, drew a ship. And the ship broke free of the wall and carried the prisoner to the open sea.
September 24
T HE I NVENTOR M AGICIAN
In the year 1912 Harry Houdini showed off his new trick at the Busch Circus in Berlin:
Â
                    The Chinese water torture cell!
                    The most original invention of all time!
It was a tank filled to the brim with water, then hermetically sealed after Houdini was lowered in upside down with his wrists and ankles shackled. Through glass, the audience could watch him under water, not breathing for what seemed like centuries, until the drowned man somehow managed to make his escape.
Houdini could not have known that many years later this form of asphyxiation would become the preferred torture of Latin Americaâs dictatorships, or the one most praised by the expert George W. Bush.
September 25
T HE I NQUISITIVE S AGE
Miguel Ignacio Lillo never went to college, but book by book he built a science library that filled his entire house.
On a day like today around 1915, a few students from Tucumán spent a long afternoon in that
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