2010-10-01
13 分钟Thank you for downloading this episode of
A History of the World in 100 Objects from BBC Radio 4.
You can hardly turn on the radio these days
without being bombarded by yet another anniversary—
100 years since this, 200 years since that.
Our popular history seems to be written increasingly in centenaries,
all generating books and exhibitions, t-shirts and special souvenir issues
in a huge and happy frenzy of commemoration.
But where did this habit of anniversary festivities begin?
The answer to that question takes us to the great struggle
for religious freedoms played out across northern Europe in the 17th century.
Because the first of all these modern centenary celebrations
seems to have been organized in Germany, in Saxony, in 1617.
And the object for this program is a souvenir poster made at the time.
The event it's commemorating had taken place a hundred years earlier.
In 1517, the story goes, Martin Luther picked up a hammer
and nailed what was effectively his religious manifesto—
his 95 Theses—to the church door in Wittenberg.
And in doing so, he triggered the religious turmoil
that would become the Protestant Reformation.