On this day in 1973, the people of Greece voted overwhelmingly to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic. It was a gambit by the military junta leader, Georgios Papadopoulos. He figured he could finesse the resulting democracy. But what actually happened was no democracy and much chaos. Almost a year and half later, the people of Greece got to vote again and they created more or less the system they now have.

But as I was reading about it, I couldn’t help but think it sounded very familiar: the Greeks vote overwhelmingly for something — and then they don’t get it. But at least in 1973, they were living under a dictatorship. Now it was their own elected officials who called for an election, celebrated its victory, and then did the opposite.

Of course, there is a real question of whether Greece still has a democracy. It seems that once a country enters the eurozone, it is no longer a democracy. This is actually why I don’t think that the eurozone is going to survive. In the 1930s, European countries had to fall militarily to Germany. This time, they’ve just surrendered to Germany. I can’t imagine that the people of Europe are going to continue to enjoy living under Germany’s thumb — especially with the way that Germany gleefully abuses its power and tells everyone they would be fine if they were more like Germany. The last thing we need are more countries acting like Germany.

But we mark this day 42 years ago when the people of Greece voted and then were ignored.