The Bible’s Book of Daniel tells us that disembodied fingers of a human hand appeared before King Belshazzar and wrote a mysterious inscription on the wall of the palace. The king could not read it. But the prophet Daniel, who was brought before the king, interpreted it for his majesty.
Daniel said that the writing on the wall declared that the king had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. His days were numbered and his reign would soon end.
Two and a half millennia later, philosopher George Santayana taught us that people who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
Seventy five years after Santayana’s pithy teaching, an inscription appeared on the wall of the palace of a king who was infamous for his ignorance of history. This time, the writing on the wall was in ketchup.