Today in History: St. Catherine's Wheel

It was a day like today.

On November 25, 1562 was born Spanish poet dramatist Felix Lope de Vega, the sine qua non of Spain’s Golden Age.

Today is the death date of novelist Upton Sinclair, author of Oil!, and The Jungle, in 1968.

The Catholic Church today celebrates the feast of St. Catherine, patroness of Christian philosophers who met martyrdom in the 4th century AD during the reign of Emperor Maxentius. According to tradition, she was a patrician of Alexandria and denounced the emperor to his face for his persecution of Christians. When fifty pagan philosophers were converted by her example and arguments, Maxentius had them burnt to death. He had Catherine imprisoned. When he returned, he found that his own wife and two hundred soldiers of the guard had also been converted. Putting all of them to death, he decided upon a unique torture for Catherine. Condemning Catherine to die on a spiked wheel, he then had her beheaded when the wheel miraculously broke apart. She is thought to have been buried at the Monastery at Mount Sinai. Catherine is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and was one of the voices heard by another virgin, Joan of Arc, who was to save France from foreign domination some 6 centuries later.