FIFTY YEARS AGO. October 23 is also the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian rebellion that Nikita Khrushchev and Yuri Andropov suppressed. Daniel Kemeny will be presenting a five-part post of those events at the European Tribune, commencing with the prelude and the outbreak. There is political unrest in Hungary even as we read these histories, and in a comment, Mr Kemeny notes, "I shall also jump forward to something covered in more detail by the fifth diary: presently in Hungary, 23 October is a day of division, not a happy national celebration. This has been so for years, with the far-right disrupting celebrations even in cemeteries." Civil wars are like that: July 4 is only recently occasion in Mississippi to have a fireworks display. Vicksburg surrendered to Gen^l. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee on July 4, 1863.