Studs Terkel died on Halloween.

"So that's what it's about. Let's be political for a moment - you can't avoid it. We think of Bertolt Brecht, collaborating with Kurt Weill and writing plays. But he was a poet. In one poem he asks, "Who built the Seven Gates of Thebes?" He says, you know, who did it? Was it kings, queens? If I were to ask people who built the pyramids the immediate reaction would be well, the pharaohs did. The pharaohs didn't lift a finger. Mr. Pharaoh's hands were as immaculately manicured as Elizabeth Taylor's in Cleopatra. "When the Chinese Wall was built, where did the masons go for lunch?
When Caesar conquered Gaul, there was not even one cook in the army?" And the big one is when the Spanish Armada sank. I remember the year 1588 as well as I do 1492 and 1776. 'Cause I was told that's when Sir Francis Drake conquered the Spanish Armada. He did? By himself? And so Brecht writes, "When the Armada sank, we read that King Philip of Spain, King Philip wept." Here's the big one: "Were there no other tears?"
Now to me, public radio as well as history should be about those who shed those other tears. And about who makes the wheels go round."

From an interview on the always compelling Transom.org website.