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Onnthis date more than 2,000 years ago, a man named Herostratus wantednto become widely known. It’s too bad he wasn’t amazingly skilled atnathletics or art, because then perhaps he would have poured hisnambition into those fields. But apparently he couldn’t come up with anbetter plan for achieving fame than to destroy somethingnimportant!
What could he destroy that would immortalize hisnname? Herostratus decided on the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
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Artemis is the Ancient Greek goddess of the hunt (and is nownlinked to the Roman goddess Diana). This particular temple was builtnin what is today part of Turkey. It was built about a thousand yearsnbefore Herostratus’s time, but in the 7th Century BCE, thenbuilding had been destroyed by a flood. It was finally reconstructednafter a decade of work around 550 BCE.
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But their idea didn’t work.nThe historian Theopompus wrote about Herostratus’s deed, includingnnaming the villain, and Herostratus’s infamy lives on to this day!
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Science fiction author David Brin says thatnwe should not be making into household names the monsters who blow up buildings and shoot school kids and do othernhorrible acts. He thought that, the more infamy we heap upon thesensick individuals – the more TV coverage and specials, the morenmagazine covers, the more interviews of the criminals and theirnfamilies and former schoolmates – the more OTHER people will beninclined to try to garner notoriety for themselves.n
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Ofncourse, there is going to be news coverage about horrible crimes, butnBrin suggests that we resist the urge to splash the images ofnthe criminals around, and that, instead of making their names famous,nwe refer to them as something like “Doofus # __.”
I agree with Brin. There is an organization with a similar idea called “No Notoriety: No Name. No Photo. No Notoriety.”
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Liberation Day in Guam n
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Plannahead:
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nJulyn holidays
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nJulyn birthdays
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nHistoricaln anniversaries in July
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nAugustn holidays
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nAugustn birthdays
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nHistoricaln anniversaries in August
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