Free Republic

Had Germany been triumphant in today's semifinal match, all the talk would have been about the Dutch seeking revenge for World War II. Instead, Spain scored the one and only goal, proving once again that Paul the Octopus is all-knowing. (He is now taking bets for the Super Bowl.) Nevertheless, being Europe with its long history of cross-border conflict and bloodshed, a grudge match it will be come Sunday—at least if you are Dutch and are familiar with the War of the Spanish Succession as well as Schiller's Don Carlos, Infant of Spain (not to mention Verdi's opera of the...

For most of this century, the Hapsburg dynasty has been about as popular as a pork sandwich in a mosque among the intelligentsia. This fact has influenced a great many of the attitudes prevailing in our mass media and what passes for our education system. Thousands of Australians will possess vivid memories of a school textbook that dominated our history lessons: Cyrus Leo Sulzber's(1) Fall of eagles'. Mr Sulzberger, as the very phrase 'fall of eagles' suggests, disliked the Habsburgs even more than the Hohenzollerns and the Romanovs, the other two objects of his wrath. The book is a hymn...