Alice Pemberton: In nineteen twenty-one, Lisbon's Bloody Night kills Machado Santos, who led the uprising that ended Portugal's monarchy. Alice Pemberton: In nineteen fifty, Iran and the United States sign the first Point Four agreement, bringing American technical assistance to Iran. Alice Pemberton: And in twenty seventeen, astronomer Robert Weryk spots ʻOumuamua, the first known visitor from beyond our Solar System. Alice Pemberton: This is The Long Echo for the nineteenth of October. I'm Alice Pemberton. History doesn't repeat itself — but it echoes. Alice Pemberton: In this edition: Edmund Cavendish on the degree that armed a rebel; Arthur Nightingale on a dean who wrote his own epitaph; Judge Marion Calloway on the law that cracked physics; Doc Sullivan on a recipe for catching lightning; and a table that runs from Carthage to Eurovision. Let's begin. Alice Pemberton: In fifteen-twelve, an Augustinian friar at Wittenberg was handed the credential that would one day let him argue with Rome. For the front page — our professor of history, Edmund Cavendish. Edmund? Professor Edmund Cavendish: Handed, and paid for by a prince. On this day in fifteen-twelve, Martin Luther became a Doctor of Theology in the Castle Church at Wittenberg, his fees covered by the Elector, Frederick the Wise. His superior, Johann von Staupitz, wanted him in the university's chair of Bible, and that chair required the degree. Alice Pemberton: So far it's a promotion. Where's the danger? Professor Edmund Cavendish: In the job description. Luther was now paid to read Scripture for a living, and he came to teach that the Bible alone was the source of revealed truth — above any pope or bishop. Within five years, his theses on indulgences had set off a debate across Europe. Alice Pemberton: And Rome's answer? Professor Edmund Cavendish: Excommunication, and then the Emperor Charles the Fifth declared him an outlaw. But nobody could revoke the doctorate. Rome's own world of learning had certified the man who would break with it — and Luther died still excommunicated, and still Doctor Martin Luther. Alice Pemberton: On this day in seventeen forty-five, Jonathan Swift died in Dublin — having already written the words for his own grave. For his life, our storyteller, Arthur Nightingale. Arthur? Arthur Nightingale: His own grave, and in Latin, because Jonathan Swift never left the last word to anyone else. He was born in Dublin, the only son of a family that had crossed from England after the Civil War ruined them. He became a clergyman, and in time Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral — Dean Swift. Alice Pemberton: A churchman. Where does the satirist come in? Arthur Nightingale: Behind a mask, always. Swift published as Isaac Bickerstaff, as M. B. Drapier, as Lemuel Gulliver — the traveller who gave the world Lilliput. Those false names may well have kept him safe, in an age when satire could cost a man dearly. Alice Pemberton: And under the masks? Arthur Nightingale: A man who could do the gentle joke and the savage one. He invented the name Vanessa for a poem. He also wrote A Modest Proposal, so deadpan and so merciless that we now have a word for that kind of writing: Swiftian. Gulliver's Travels remains the most printed book by any Irish writer. Alice Pemberton: What did it cost him? Arthur Nightingale: Peace, I think. The anger never cooled. And at the end, Jonathan Swift left the bulk of his fortune to found a hospital for the mentally ill — St Patrick's, in Dublin, which still treats patients. Alice Pemberton: And the epitaph? Arthur Nightingale: He lies beside Esther Johnson, his Stella, under the words he chose: 'where fierce Indignation can no longer injure the Heart.' And then, to everyone who passes: 'Go forth, Voyager, and copy, if you can.' Alice Pemberton: In nineteen hundred, a Berlin physicist offered a formula that fitted the evidence — and demoted an established law of nature. For the verdict on Max Planck, our jurist, Judge Marion Calloway. Marion? Judge Marion Calloway: Demoted is exactly right, because in science, as in my courtroom, a law stands only until the evidence breaks it. On this day in nineteen hundred, at the German Physical Society in Berlin, Ferdinand Kurlbaum presented measurements made with Heinrich Rubens. They showed that Wilhelm Wien's law of radiation failed at long wavelengths. Alice Pemberton: And Max Planck had the remedy ready? Judge Marion Calloway: He'd sent it to Rubens beforehand, and Rubens checked it against the data. It fitted — how hot bodies glow, across every wavelength then measured. Wien's law wasn't struck down; it was reduced to a special case. Alice Pemberton: A better formula. Why is that history? Judge Marion Calloway: Because Planck then had to justify it. Within two months he argued that energy comes in equal little parcels — 'energy elements', he called them — and gave us a new constant, h. That is the founding document of quantum theory. Alice Pemberton: Did anyone see it coming? Judge Marion Calloway: His own professor certainly didn't. As a student, Max Planck was warned off theoretical physics by Philipp von Jolly, who called physics 'a highly developed, nearly fully matured science.' Rarely has an expert witness been so thoroughly impeached. Alice Pemberton: In seventeen fifty-two, Benjamin Franklin's own newspaper printed instructions for flying a kite into a thunderstorm — without saying he had done it. Our man for science and medicine, Doc Sullivan. Doc? Doc Sullivan: Without a word about himself, which is the strangest part. On this day in seventeen fifty-two, The Pennsylvania Gazette printed Franklin's account of the kite experiment in the third person, as though it belonged to someone else. And it reads like a recipe. Alice Pemberton: Then read us the recipe. Doc Sullivan: 'Make a small Cross of two light Strips of Cedar,' it begins. A silk handkerchief makes the body, because silk is, quote, 'fitter to bear the Wet and Wind of a Thunder Gust without tearing.' A sharp wire on top, a silk ribbon at your hand — and where the twine and silk join, 'a Key may be fastened.' Alice Pemberton: What was it meant to prove? Doc Sullivan: That the fire in a thundercloud is electricity. Europe was already drawing that 'Electric Fire' down with 'pointed Rods of Iron erected on high Buildings.' Franklin's Gazette promised the same result 'in a different and more easy Manner.' Alice Pemberton: Easy for whom? Doc Sullivan: Precisely my worry. The method, said the Gazette, was one 'which any one may try.' Speaking as a physician, I'd amend the prescription: please don't. Alice Pemberton: A broken treaty, a ruined city, a cheap typewriter, a test tube and a song. At the table: world-affairs correspondent James Harlow, arts critic Margaux Delacroix, and book editor Calvin Alden. James — Carthage. James Harlow: In four thirty-nine, Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, seized Carthage in breach of a treaty, while Rome's general Aetius was busy in Gaul. The chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine says Gaiseric took it 'by the deceit of peace'. Margaux Delacroix: The deceit of peace. Every embassy should have that carved over the door. James Harlow: And in eighteen twelve, Napoleon learned that taking a city isn't keeping it. On this day he began the retreat from Moscow, having written to his minister Maret: 'I am blowing up the Kremlin.' And then: 'Moscow is no longer of military importance for me.' Calvin Alden: From one city in flames to another kind of fire. In nineteen fifty-three, Ray Bradbury published Fahrenheit 451, first drafted on coin-operated typewriters in a UCLA library basement — ten cents a half-hour. Margaux Delacroix: And the title? Calvin Alden: He rang the fire department, who told him: 'Book paper catches fire at 451 degrees Fahrenheit.' The first draft cost him nine dollars eighty. Cheapest research in American letters. James Harlow: Nine dollars eighty. I've filed expenses that achieved rather less. Margaux Delacroix: Here's a better bargain still. In nineteen forty-three, a graduate student at Rutgers named Albert Schatz isolated streptomycin, the first practical antibiotic against tuberculosis. 'I realized I had a new antibiotic,' he recalled. 'I named it streptomycin.' Then he sealed the tube: 'I first gave it to my mother, but it is now at the Smithsonian Institution.' Calvin Alden: A weapon against one of the leading killers of the age — and his first thought was his mum. James Harlow: Something lighter to finish. In nineteen fifty-five, meeting in Rome, the European Broadcasting Union approved a 'Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson', inspired by Italy's Sanremo festival. The stated aim: 'a spirit of friendly rivalry between writers and composers.' Margaux Delacroix: Friendly rivalry. Has anyone told the voting juries? Calvin Alden: Gaiseric would have cleaned up at Eurovision. Smile, sign the treaty, take the points. Alice Pemberton: Broken peace and friendly rivalry — sometimes the very same handshake. Thank you, all three. Alice Pemberton: Well, that was the day that was — the nineteenth of October — where in nineteen forty-four American forces came ashore in the Philippines, opening the Battle of Leyte; where in fifteen seventy-nine Edinburgh staged a ceremony declaring its boy king, James the Sixth of Scotland, grown enough to rule in his own right; and where in eighteen sixty-six Austria handed Veneto to France, which passed it straight on to Italy, settling an old bill over Savoy and Nice. The echo never stops. Neither do we. See you tomorrow. Humphrey Thwaite: They skipped Charlotte Brontë. On this day in eighteen forty-seven, Jane Eyre was published in London under the name Currer Bell, and she wrote to her publishers: 'if it fails, the fault will lie with the author, you are exempt.' Mortimer Finch: A whole edition about people hiding behind other names, and they leave out Currer Bell? Humphrey Thwaite: Worse. She couldn't even prepay the postage on the manuscript — the little station wouldn't take the money. One of the greatest novels in English went to London with the carriage owing.