Author: Editor

Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, was born on October 30, 1748.

On the same date two hundred twenty years later, American journalist, novelist and author Rose Wilder Lane died. Lane is perhaps best known, today, for her editorial work — some say “ghost writing” — of her mother’s Little House on the Prairie books for children. Her non-fiction The Discovery of Freedom was published in 1943, the same year as a similarly themed book, The God of the Machine, was published by her friend Isabel Paterson.

On October 25, 1806, German philosopher Max Stirner was born. Stirner was known for his radical individualism, which under the name of “egoism” became culturally chic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, a major work that was famously attacked by Karl Marx, he translated into German Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations from its original English and J.-B. Say’s A Treatise on Political Economy from its original French.

On October 22, 1964, philosopher and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but turned down the honor — establishing a precedent that should have been followed by numerous Peace Prize winners, including Barack Obama and the European Union.

Only one other recipient of the award has turned it down voluntarily, namely Henry Kissinger’s co-winner in 1973, Le Duc Tho. Four other recipients were coerced by their governments from accepting the prize’s monetary award: Richard Kuhn, Adolf Butenandt and Gerhard Domagk, by the Nazi government, and Boris Pasternak, by the Soviet Union.

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas, thinking he had reached “the Indies.”

Exactly two hundred years later, a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips ended the Salem Witch Trials.

On this date in 1892, the Pledge of Allegiance was first recited by students in many U.S. public schools, as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage.

The Pledge had been composed that year by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist minister, and was first published in Youth’s Companion magazine, September 8, 1892. The recital was accompanied with a salute to the flag known as the Bellamy salute. During World War II, the salute was replaced with a hand-over-heart gesture because the original form (described in detail by Bellamy) involved stretching the arm out towards the flag in a manner that resembled the later Nazi salute. The original form of the Pledge was somewhat less involved than later versions:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In October an editorial addition occurred, the word “to” prefixing “the republic.”

On September 29, 1789, the first Congress of the United States under the new Constitution adjourned.

On the same date in 1881, economist Ludwig von Mises was born in Lemberg, Galicia, of the Austria-Hungary Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine).

Lancaster, Pennsylvania — home to James Buchanan, Jr., the 15th president of the United States, and to congressman, abolitionist and “Radical Republican” Thaddeus Stevens — served, during the American Revolution, as the capital of the United States for one day, on September 27, 1777.

This occurred after the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, which had been captured by the British. The revolutionary government then moved still further away, to York.

On September 26, 1786, protestors shut down the court in Springfield, Massachusetts, beginning a military standoff and ushering in Shays’ Rebellion. This anti-tax revolt spurred a dramatic reaction on the part of the day’s politicians, including their attempts to reform the Articles of Confederation and to figure out better ways than high state taxes to pay off Revolutionary War debts. These efforts directly led to the adoption of a new Constitution.

§   Three years later, to the day, Thomas Jefferson was appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay (pictured) was appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood was appointed the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph was appointed the first United States Attorney General — all under the new Constitution.

§   In 1960 on this date, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon engaged in the first televised presidential campaign debates.

§   September 26 is celebrated, by some who know history, as “Petrov Day,” after Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, who on this day in 1983 may have saved civilization by resorting to hunch. While serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces, he took the initiative to downgrade information from the USSR’s computerized early warning missile defense system that the United States had initiated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. He interpreted the warning as a false alarm. His hunch was correct; the U.S. had not initiated a first strike: the data he had received was misleading. A later investigation determined it was the result of high altitutde cloud interference with a satelite view of a U.S. Air Force base. Petrov was not rewarded for his decision, however. His decision showed up the military higher-ups and scientists to have concocted an extremely faulty system, so a reward would also have required some sort of punishment. He retired soon after with a very, very small pension.

Petrov died on May 19, 2017.