“This is the most dramatic moment of our recent history,” Ferruccio de Bortoli, the editor of the Milan daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, said earlier on national television.

The streets of Rome pulsed with a sense of historic change. Many cheered Mr. Berlusconi’s exit. Outside the Palazzo del Quirinale, the presidential palace, a choir and orchestra performed Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus.

“There are 2 hard problems in computer science: caching, naming, and off-by-1 errors”

Money taken from the general population and used by the government as it sees fit is also known by another name. Henry Fielding hit upon it in his ballad-opera “The Lottery”, written in 1731: “A Lottery is a Taxation,/Upon all the Fools in Creation;/And Heav’n be praised,/It is easily raised,/Credulity’s always in Fashion:/For, Folly’s a Fund,/Will Never Lose Ground,/While Fools are so rife in the Nation.” According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, in 2006 American lotteries generated nearly $17 billion in revenue for state governments. The chance of winning the Mega Millions jackpot is about one in 176m. For comparison, an individual’s chance of being struck by lightning is around one in 750,000.