Hitler's prophecy was a statement first made by Adolf Hitler in a speech (pictured) at the Reichstag on 30 January 1939: "If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe". Hitler continued to invoke the prophecy throughout the war and referenced it in his last will and testament, such that the prophecy became a leitmotif of the Final Solution and is the best-known phrase from Hitler's speeches. The historical significance of the prophecy is debated: intentionalists view it as proof of Hitler's previously developed master plan to systematically murder the European Jews, while functionalists argue that "annihilation" was not meant or understood to mean mass murder, at least initially. It is also cited as evidence that Germans were aware that Jews were being exterminated.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_prophecy

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1661:

Two years after his death, Oliver Cromwell's remains were exhumed for a posthumous execution and his head was placed on a spike above Westminster Hall in London, where it remained until 1685. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell%27s_head

1972:

The Troubles: On Bloody Sunday, members of the British Parachute Regiment shot 26 civil-rights protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing at least thirteen people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29

2013:

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute launched Naro-1, South Korea's first carrier rocket and their first launch vehicle to achieve Earth orbit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naro-1

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dehort: (transitive, rare or obsolete) To dissuade. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dehort

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.   --Cicely Tyson https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cicely_Tyson