Category: Today

On May 2, 1989, Hungary began dismantling its border fence with Austria, allowing a number of East Germans to defect.

On May 1, 1851, Queen Victoria performed the ritual function of opening the Great Exhibition in London.

On April 30, 1902, future Nobel Laureate for his work in economics, Theodore W. Schultz, was born.

On April 29, 1945, U.S. troops liberated the Dachau concentration camp.

On April 28, 1789, Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors were set adrift by the rebel crew of the HMS Bounty, which returned briefly to Tahiti and then set sail for Pitcairn Island. On the same date in 2001, millionaire Dennis Tito became the world’s first space tourist.

On April 26, 1710, English philosopher of “common sense” Thomas Reid was born. A highly influential figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, and well-​known critic of Hume before Kant, his major works were “An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense,” “Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man,” and “Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind.” The Scottish “common sense” approach (shared by Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart) continued into the 19th and 20th centuries in the works of William Hamilton, Herbert Spencer, C.S. Peirce, and George Santayana.

On the same day in 1889, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was born, and in 1938, philosopher Edmund Husserl died.