Christmas Every Day

1469

Birth of Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was a Florentine politician and writer whose name has become synonymous with the publication of the deeply-cynical The Prince but who had a much more interesting career than merely writing a tract on a conscience-free approach to public life. Of him, Chamber’s Book of Days says:

Machiavelli was born, in Florence, in 1469, of an ancient, but not wealthy family. He received a liberal education, and in his 29^th year he was appointed secretary to the Ten, or committee of foreign affairs for the Florentine Republic. His abilities and penetration they quickly discerned, and despatched him from time to time on various and arduous diplomatic missions to the courts and camps of doubtful allies and often enemies. The Florentines were rich and weak, and the envy of the poor and strong; and to save themselves from sack and ruin, they had to trim adroitly between France, Spain, Germany, and neighbouring Italian powers. Machiavelli proved an admirable instrument in such difficult business; and his despatches to Florence, describing his own tactics and those of his opponents, are often as fascinating as a romance, while furnishing authentic pictures of the remorseless cruelty and deceit of the statesmen of his age.

In 1512 the brothers Giuliano and Giovanni de Medici, with the help of Spanish soldiers, re-entered Florence, from which. their family had been expelled in 1494, overthrew the government, and seized the reins of power. Machiavelli lost his place, and was shortly after thrown into prison, and tortured, on the charge of conspiring against the new regime. In the meanwhile Giovanni was elected Pope by the name of Leo X; and knowing the Medicean love of literature, Machiavelli addressed a sonnet from his dungeon to Giuliano, half sad, half humorous, relating his sufferings, his torture, his annoyance in hearing the screams of the other prisoners, and the threats he had of being hanged. In the end a pardon was sent from Rome by Leo X, to all concerned in the plot, but not until two of Machiavelli’s comrades had been executed.

Machiavelli now retired for several years to his country-house at San Casciano, about eight miles from Florence, and spent his days in literary pursuits. His exile from public life was not willing, and he longed to be useful to the Medici. Writing to his friend Vettori at Rome, 10^th December, 1513, he says, ‘I wish that these Signori Medici would employ me, were it only in rolling a stone. They ought not to doubt my fidelity. My poverty is a testimony to it.’ In order to prove to them ‘that he had not spent the fifteen years in which he had studied the art of government in sleeping or playing,’ he commenced writing The Prince, the book which has clothed his name with obloquy. It was not written for publication, but for the private study of the Medici, to commend himself to them by proving how thoroughly he was master of the art and craft of Italian statesmanship.

About 1519 the Medici received him into favour, and drew him out of his obscurity. Leo X employed him to draw up a new constitution for Florence, and his eminent diplomatic skill was brought into play in a variety of missions. Returning to Florence, after having acted as spy on the Emperor Charles V’s movements during his descent upon Italy, he took ill, and doctoring himself, grew worse, and died on the 22^nd of June, 1527, aged fifty-eight. He left five children, with little or no fortune. He was buried in the church of Santa Croce, where, in 1787, Earl Cowper erected a monument to his memory.

The Prince was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli’s death, when it was printed at Rome with the sanction of Pope Clement VII; but some years later the Council of Trent pronounced it ‘an accursed book.’ The Prince is a code of policy for one who rules in a State where he has many enemies; the case, for instance, of the Medici in Florence. In its elaboration, Machiavelli makes no account of morality, probably unconscious of the principles and scruples we designate by that name, and displays a deep and subtle acquaintance with human nature. He advises a sovereign to make himself feared, but not hated; and in cases of treason to punish with death rather than confiscation, ‘for men will sooner forget the execution of their father than the loss of their patrimony.’

There are two ways of ruling, one by the laws and the other by force: ‘the first is for men, the second for beasts;’ but as the first is not always sufficient, cient, one must resort at times to the other, ‘and adopt the ways of the lion and the fox.’ The chapter in which he discusses, ‘in what manner ought a prince to keep faith?’ has been most severely condemned. He begins by observing, that everybody knows how praiseworthy it is for a prince to keep his faith, and practise no deceit; but yet, he adds, we have seen in our own day how princes have prospered who have broken their faith, and artfully deceived their rivals. If all men were good, faith need never be broken; but as they are bad, and will cheat you, there is nothing left but to cheat them when necessary. He then cites the example of Pope Alexander VI as one who took in everybody by his promises, and broke them without hesitation when he thought they interfered with his ends.

It can hardly excite wonder, that a manual of statesmanship written in such a strain should have excited horror and indignation throughout Europe. Different theories have been put forth concerning The Prince by writers to whom the open profession of such deceitful tactics has seemed incredible. Some have imagined, that Machiavelli must have been writing in irony, or with the purpose of rendering the Medici hateful, or of luring them to destruction. The simpler view is the true one: namely, that he wrote The Prince to prove to the Medici what a capable man was resting idly at their service. In holding this opinion, we must not think of Machiavelli as a sinner above others. He did no more than transcribe the practice of the ablest statesmen of his time into luminous and forcible language. Our feelings of repugnance at his teaching would have been incomprehensible, idiotic, or laughable to them. If they saw any fault in Machiavelli’ s book, it would be in its free exposure of the secrets of statecraft.

Unquestionably, much of the odium which gathered round the name of Machiavelli arose from that cause. His posthumous treatise was conveniently denounced for its immorality by men whose true aversion to it sprang from its exposure of their arts. The Italians, refined and defenceless in the midst of barbarian covetousness and power, had many plausible excuses for Machiavellian policy; but every reader of history knows, that Spanish, German, French, and English statesmen never hesitated to act out the maxims of The Prince when occasion seemed expedient. If Machiavelli differed from his contemporaries, it was for the better. Throughout The Prince there flows a hearty and enlightened zeal for civilization, and a patriotic interest in the welfare of Italy. He was clearly a man of benevolent and honourable aims, but without any adequate idea of the wrongfulness of compassing the best ends by evil means. The great truth, which our own age is only beginning to incorporate into statesmanship, that there is no policy, in the long run, like honesty, was far beyond the range of vision of the rulers and diplomatists of the 15^th and 16^th centuries.

Machiavelli was a writer of singularly nervous and concise Italian. As a dramatist he takes high rank. His comedy of Mandragola is spoken of by Lord Macaulay as superior to the best of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best of Molière. It was performed at Florence with great success and Leo X admired it so much, that he had it played before him at Rome. He also wrote a History of Florence, which is a lively and graphic narrative, and an Art of War, which won the praise of so competent a judge as Frederick the Great of Prussia. These and other of his works form eight and ten volumes octavo in the collected editions.

1945

Mass suicide in Germany

By 1945 German civilians were well aware of the atrocities that their army had committed on the Eastern Front and the revenge that was being taken by the Soviets as they pressed toward Berlin. The media run by Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels stressed the inhuman waves of arson, rape and murder carried out by the Red Army, causing millions of refugees to flee west. Another consequence was the phenomenon of mass suicides, either in anticipation of Russian occupation, or after having suffered brutal treatment at the hands of Russian troops. One remarkable case of this took place on May 1, 1945, in Demmin, the day that Berlin was captured and the hammer and sickle flag was waved over the German chancellery.

On April 30 the Red Army reached the outskirts of Demmin, a town full of refugees from the east. Nazi officials and the police had fled and a large white banner flew from the church steeple signalled a willingness to surrender. Three emissaries from the Red Army approached with a promise of easy treatment but they were gunned down by Nazi diehards, and fanatic Hitler Youth continued to snipe at advancing Russian units. The retreating German army had dynamited the bridges as they went, leaving the townsfolk with no routes of escape and a vengeful enemy pouring in. The result was three days of ceaseless rape and looting while 80% of Demmin was burnt to the ground.

These horrors prompted panic and a rash of collective suicides. Whole families killed themselves with poison, gunshot, drowning or hanging. With the death toll placed at anywhere from 900 to 2,000 it was the largest recorded mass suicide in Germany.

535

Murder of Amalasuntha

One of the tragedies surrounding the fall of the Roman Empire in the West is the fact that it needn’t have been so catastrophic. The Ostrogoths who had invaded Italy and deposed the last of the western emperors in 476 were anxious to keep their territory peaceful and functioning — otherwise how could the population support their Germanic occupiers in the manner to which they would like to become accustomed? Under their king Theoderic (454-526), the trappings of civilization were maintained; using Roman administrators, they collected taxes, dredged the harbours, maintained trade, and kept the roads clear of bandits. Libraries were open, Christian worship (both Catholic and Arian) proceeded unmolested. However, in his last years, Theoderic lost faith in his Roman ruling class and executed a number of them for conspiring with the Eastern Roman empire in Constantinople.

Had Theoderic died with an adult male heir, things might yet have continued in a peaceful manner, but his only surviving child was a daughter Amalasuntha (495-535) and so the crown went to her ten-year-old son Athalaric, for whom she served as regent. Amalasuntha seems to have been well-educated in the traditional Roman manner, speaking Gothic, Latin and Greek, and she was certainly a friend both of her Roman administrative class and the eastern empire: a fact that vexed some traditionalist Gothic nobles. When her son died in 534, she shared her reign with her cousin Theodahad, believing that a male of the warrior class would lend her regime some authority. It was a fatal mistake — Thedodahad exiled Amalasuntha and had her murdered in her bath. This prompted a struggle for the crown; in the ensuing civil strife Theodahad was himself killed but, more importantly, the eastern empire was given an excuse to intervene.

The ensuing Gothic wars that began with the invasion of an eastern army under Belisarius went on for over twenty years and ended in Italy being ravaged in a worse fashion than the barbarian incursions had produced. The weakened Gothic and eastern forces were finally in no state to resist yet another wave of barbarians, the Lombards, who further devasted the peninsula.

1944 

Operation Tiger Disaster

In preparation for D-Day, the western Allies’ invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe, tens of thousands of troops had to be trained in amphibious assaults. Previous attacks launched from the sea had often proved to be catastrophic: at Gallipoli in 1915 the British forces struggled to get off the beach; at Dieppe in 1942, Canadian raiders showed how difficult it was to assault a port; in 1943 during the invasion of Sicily American paratroopers were dropped into the Mediterranean far from land. Planners for the Normandy landings were intent on applying these lessons to the forces that would be landed on June 6.

In April 1944 a massive landing exercise, dubbed Operation Tiger, took place on the south coast of England. It proved to be almost as deadly as the invasion itself. On April 27, poor coordination between American and British units resulted in “friendly fire” falling on troops as they hit the beaches. Hundreds were killed. The next day, German E-boats, fast attack craft (shown above), attacked Allied landing ships sailing to Operation Tiger in the English Channel. One of the two British destroyers that were to be escorting the helpless LSTs had already collided with one of them and returned to port for repairs but, again, bad communication with American forces meant that no replacement had been sent.

The E-boats had a field day: two LSTs were torpedoed and sunk and one was set on fire; another was damaged by — you guessed it — “friendly fire”. Altogether 749 American soldiers and sailors were killed in that encounter. By contrast, the actual D-Day casualty total for the American landing on Utah Beach was only 197 dead.

1913

Birth of Lutz Long

Lutz Long (1913-43) was a German athlete, famous for his actions at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Long was the German long-jump champion and the holder of the European record but his opponent in Berlin was slated to be the legendary multidiscipline runner and jumper from the United States, Jesse Owens. Owens held the world record not only for the long jump but also for the 100-yard dash, the 220-yard sprint and the 220-yard low hurdles.

When Owens and Long met on August 4, 1936, Owens had just won the gold in the 100 metres but Long had just set the Olympic record in the long jump and qualified for the final. Owens stared disaster in the face by fouling out in his first two attempts, leaving him a single try to qualify. At this point he was approached by Long who told him that he could easily make the final round by making his take-off from several inches in front of the board and avoid the risk of fouling. Owens took his advice and went on to defeat Long, who won the silver medal. Owens was always grateful for that piece of sportsmanship and stated:  “It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler … You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be a plating on the twenty-four karat friendship that I felt for Luz Long at that moment”.

Long served in the Wehrmacht artillery during the Second World War and was killed in the battle for Sicily. After the war Owens maintained his friendship with Long’s family and served as best man at his son’s wedding.

1985

New Coke

Custer’s charge at Little Big Horn; the introduction of the Edsel; the decision not to withdraw from Stalingrad; Hilary Clinton choosing not to campaign in the Rust Belt: all great disasters, but they pale into insignificance beside the arrival of “the new taste of Coca Cola” in April 1985.

When World War II ended, Coke’s share of the American soft drink market was 60%; 30 years later that share had dwindled to under 24% — and much of that was only because of Coke’s near monopoly of the fountain drink syrup business. Analysts saw young people buying Pepsi Cola, with its sweeter taste, and Baby Boomers switching to diet drinks. It was not unreasonable, therefore, for Coke to tinker with its formula in order to compete with Pepsi; a series of blind taste tastes showed that a sweeter concoction was preferred to both the old Coke and Pepsi. The company chose not to introduce the new flavour as an option, lest it merely cannibalize sales, and in April 1985 production of the old drink ceased, to be replaced by the “more harmonious” cola.

Pepsi executives had seen this coming and poisoned the well of public opinion, announcing that this change proved Coke had lost the “Cola Wars” and was no longer “the real thing”. Public reaction was scathing and the media had a field day mocking the decision. Entrepreneurs bought up stocks of the old flavour and commanded premium prices for the drink. Finally, three months later, Coke executives reintroduced “Coke Classic” while keeping New Coke on the market. Sales shot back up and the soda drinkers of America had an old friend back. New Coke was quietly given the axe in 2002.

The story of the Wandering Jew

According to Chambers Book of Days: On the 22^nd of April 1774, the Wandering Jew, or some individual who had personated him, appeared in Brussels, where he told his story to the townsfolk.

The story of the Jew who had witnessed the Crucifixion, and had been condemned to live and wander over the earth until the time of Christ’s second coming, while it is one of the most curious of the mediaeval legends, has a peculiar interest for us, because, so far as we can distinctly trace its history, it is first heard of with any circumstantial details in our island. The chronicler of the abbey of St. Albans, whose book was copied and continued by Matthew Paris, has recorded how, in the year 1228, ‘a certain archbishop of Armenia Major came on a pilgrimage to England to see the relics of the saints, and visit the sacred places in this kingdom, as he had done in others; he also produced letters of recommendation from his Holiness the Pope to the religious men and prelates of the churches, in which they were enjoined to receive and entertain him with due reverence and honour. On his arrival, he came to St. Albans, where he was received with all respect by the abbot and monks; and at this place, being fatigued with his journey, he remained some days to rest himself and his followers, and a conversation took place between him and the inhabitants of the convent, by means of their interpreters, during which he made many inquiries relating to the religion and religious observances of this country, and told many strange things concerning the countries of the East.

In the course of conversation he was asked whether he had ever seen or heard anything of Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who, when our Lord suffered, was present and spoke to him, and who is still alive, in evidence of the Christian faith; in reply to which a knight in his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in French:

“My Lord well knows that man, and a little before he took his way to the western countries, the said Joseph ate at the table of my lord the archbishop in Armenia, and he has often seen and held converse with him.” He was then asked about what had passed between Christ and the said Joseph, to which he replied, “At the time of the suffering of Jesus Christ, he was seized by the Jews and led into the hall of judgment before Pilate, the governor, that he might be judged by him on the accusation of the Jews; and Pilate finding no cause for adjudging him to death, said to them, ‘Take him and judge him according to your law;’ the shouts of the Jews, however, increasing, he, at their request, released unto them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When therefore the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall, in Pilate’s service, as Jesus was going out of the door, impiously struck him on the back with his hand, and said in mockery, ‘Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter and Jesus, looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, ‘I am going, and you will wait till I return.’ And, according as our Lord said, this Cartaphilus is still awaiting his return.

At the time of our Lord’s suffering he was thirty years old, and, when he attains the age of a hundred years, he always returns to the same age as he was when our Lord suffered. After Christ’s death, when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaphilus was baptized by Ananias (who also baptized the apostle Paul), and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other division of Armenia, and in divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst the bishops and other prelates of the church; he is a man of holy conversation, and religious; a man of few words, and circumspect in his behaviour, for he does not speak at all unless when questioned by the bishops and religious men, and then he tells of the events of old times, and of those which occurred at the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the resurrection, namely, those who rose with Christ, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto men.

He also tells of the creed of the apostles, and of their separation and preaching. And all this he relates without smiling or levity of conversation, as one who is well practised in sorrow and the fear of God, always looking forward with fear to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the last judgment he should find him in anger, whom, when on his way to death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Numbers come to him from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and conversation; and to them, if they are men of authority, he explains all doubts on the matters on which he is questioned. He refuses all gifts that are offered to him, being content with slight food and clothing.”‘

Such is the account of the Wandering Jew left us by a chronicler who was contemporary with what he relates, and we cannot doubt that there was such a person as the Armenian in question, and that some impostor had assumed the character of the Jew who was supposed to be still wandering about the world, until in the middle of the sixteenth century he made his appearance in Germany. He had now changed his name to Ahasuerus, and somewhat modified his story:

It was again a bishop who had seen him, when he attended a sermon at Hamburg, where a stranger appeared in the winter of 1542, who made himself remarkable by the great devotion with which he listened. When questioned, he said that he was by nation a Jew, that his original occupation had been that of a shoemaker, that he had been present at the passion of Jesus Christ, and that since that time he had wandered through many countries. He said that he was one of the Jews who dragged Christ before Pilate and were clamorous for his death, and on the way to the place of crucifixion, when Jesus stopped to rest, he pushed him forward, and told him rudely to go on. The Saviour looked at him, and said, ‘I shall stop and repose, but thou shalt go on;’ upon which the Jew was seized with an irresistible desire to wander, and had left his wife and children, whom he had never seen since, and had continued to travel from one country to another, until he now came to Germany.

The bishop described him as a tall man, apparently of about fifty years of age, with long hair, which hung down to his shoulders, who went barefooted, and wore a strange costume, consisting of sailor’s trousers which reached to the feet, a petticoat which descended to the knees, and a mantle which also reached to the feet. He was always taciturn, was never seen to laugh, ate and drank little, and, if anybody offered him money, he never took more than two or three pence, which he afterwards gave away in charity, declaring that God contributed to all his wants. He related various events which he had seen in different countries and at different times, to people’s great astonishment.

All these details, and many more, are told in a letter, dated the 29^th of June 1564, which was printed in German and in French. On this occasion the Jew spoke good German, in the dialect of Saxony; but when he, or another person under the same character, appeared in the Netherlands in 1575, he spoke Spanish. A few years later the Wandering Jew arrived in Strasburg, and, presenting himself before the magistrates, informed them that he had visited their city just two hundred years before, ‘which was proved to be true by a reference to the registers of the town.’

The Wandering Jew proceeded next to the West Indies, and returned thence to France, where he made his appearance in 1604, and appears to have caused a very considerable sensation. As during the time he was there the country was visited by destructive hurricanes, it was believed that these visitations accompanied the Jew in his wanderings, and this belief became so general that at the present day, in Brittany and Picardy, when a violent hurricane comes on, the peasantry are in the habit of making the sign of the cross, and exclaiming, ‘C’est le Juif-errant qui passe!‘ Various accounts of the appearance of the Wandering Jew in differents parts of France at this time were printed, and he became the subject of more than one popular ballad, one of which is well known as still popular in France, and is sold commonly by the hawkers of books, the first lines of which are,-

‘Est-il rien sur la terre
Qui soit plus surprenant
Que la grande misere
Du pauvre Juif-errant?
Que son sort malheureux
Parait triste et facheux!’

There is a well-known English ballad on the Wandering Jew, which is perhaps as old as the time of Elizabeth, and has been reprinted in Percy’s Reliques, and in most English collections of old ballads. It relates to the Jew’s appearance in Germany and Flanders in the sixteenth century. The first stanza of the English ballad is,

When as in fair Jerusalem
Our Saviour Christ did live,
And for the sins of all the world
His own dear life did give;
The wicked Jews with scoffs and scorn
Did dailye him molest,
That never till he left his life
Our Saviour could not rest.’

 The wanderer has not since been heard of, but is supposed to be travelling in some of the unknown parts of the globe. The Histoire admirable du Juif-errant, still printed and circulated in France, forms one of the class of books which our antiquaries call chap-books, and is full of fabulous stories which the Jew is made to tell with his own mouth.

1968

Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood”

Enoch Powell (1912-98) was a brilliant classical scholar and linguist, a soldier who rose from the rank of private to general in the course of the Second World War, and a Conservative politician in the British House of Commons. In 1968 while his party was in Opposition, he gave a speech in his Birmingham constituency which opposed further non-white immigration from Commonwealth countries. It became known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech, after Powell’s reference to a passage in the Aeneid where the Sybil prophecies civil war.

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.

The speech was denounced by many in public life, including his fellow Conservative politicians; he was fired from his position as shadow defence critic.  The general public seems to have been widely supportive at the time; polls backed his position, workers went on strike to protest his demotion, and letters to the editor were overwhelmingly in his favour. In the 1970 election, the Conservatives were returned to power and voting experts were convinced that Powell’s speech had added over two million votes to the winning party.

Because of the speech, Powell remained an outsider for the rest of his political life, opposing his party on entry into the European Union and on anti-terrorist legislation, and eventually running for the Ulster Unionists. The current debate on immigration levels has prompted many in the media to bring up Powell’s 1968 predictions again.

1988

Operation Praying Mantis

During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, Iran blockaded the Gulf of Hormuz to prevent Iraqi tankers from exporting oil and prevailed upon Syria to block the pipeline from Iraq to the Mediterranean. Iraq then resorted to using Kuwaiti vessels to carry the valuable cargo, so Iran took military steps to prevent that maneuver. The United States, anxious to keep the supply of Gulf oil going to the industrialized world, reflagged the Kuwaiti ships and accorded them naval protection in the area.

When an Iranian mine exploded in international waters, damaging the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Morrison, the Americans replied with Operation Praying Mantis designed to destroy Iranian facilities and ships used in their blockade. On April 18, 1988 the US launched attacks on oil platforms used for gun installations and intelligence purposes. The Iranian navy challenged the American fleet with speedboats and frigates and also attacked unarmed tankers belonging to western nations, but overwhelming American force neutralized the threat. The Iranians lost a frigate, a gunboat and 3 speedboats; two of their oil platforms were destroyed with a cost to the US of only a 2-man helicopter crew.

The decisive defeat in the Gulf is said to have led to a more eager Iranian willingness to settle the greater war; a ceasefire with Iraq was signed later that year.

1990

The debut of Dr Death

Jacob “Jack” Kevorkian (1928-2011) was a Michigan pathologist who advanced several ideas about dying and who came to public notice for illegally assisting in patient suicides.

As a pathologist Kevorkian’s work was with the dead, leading him to propose that the blood from corpses be used in military intravenous supplies, that condemned prisoners could submit to dangerous experiments in lieu of execution, and that the organs of dead prisoners be harvested for transplant. These ideas won little favour with the authorities but did get Kevorkian the beginnings of an unsavoury reputation.

In 1990, on a 58-year old woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, he conducted the first of an estimated 130 procedures in which he provided the means by which those seeking death could commit suicide. These people were dispatched by either the “Thantron” (“Death Machine”) which dispensed lethal drugs or the “Mercitron” (“Mercy Machine”) which administered carbon monoxide poisoning. Since there was at the time no law against assisting suicide, Kevorkian could not be charged with any crime but he did lose his medical license. Undeterred by four trials from 1994-97, he continued his mission and was not successfully prosecuted.

However, in 1998 he publicly ended the life of an ALS sufferer in a television documentary and this time administered the killing drug himself. He dared the state to prosecute him, and Michigan obliged, charging with with second-degree murder and possession of a controlled drug. Kevorkian defended himself rather badly and was found guilty, with a sentence of 10-25 years in prison. He served 8 of those years before his release in 2007.

A highly controversial figure, Kevorkian succeeded in bringing the issue of assisted dying into greater public prominence.