On this day:
320
Pappus of Alexandria, a Greek philosopher, observes a solar eclipse and writes a commentary on The Great Astronomer (Almagest).
1356
Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys the town of Basel, Switzerland.
1851
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.
1860
The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.
1867
United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.
1898
United States takes possession of Puerto Rico.
1945
The USSR’s nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
1967
The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.
1860
The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.
1867
United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.
1898
United States takes possession of Puerto Rico.
1945
The USSR’s nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
1967
The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.
***
“The problem with consensus societies is that sometimes the consensus is wrong, and when it is, there is no corrective mechanism.”-- Wolfgang Münchau, author of “Kaput—The End of the German Miracle.”
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China’s total R&D expenditure exceeded $583 billion in 2025, and according to state news agency Xinhua, spending grew at an average annual rate of 10% over the five years through 2025, making China one of the fastest-growing major research investors
***
In "the greatest good for the greatest number," is there a definition of "good," and does it have any limits?
***
Reports indicate Trump has expanded his personal net worth by $2.2 billion during his second term. His elder sons, Eric and Donald Jr., have joined investment firms, while twenty-year-old Barron Trump reportedly accumulated a $150 million cryptocurrency fortune.
***
Every dollar added to the debt shifts resources from productive enterprise to debt maintenance.
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An “extremely reliable” informant told authorities about the missing murder weapon, according to newly unsealed records. The informant’s brother told The Times his sibling was at the crime scene.--NY Times
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A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientist won a legal victory this week after losing his position following sexual misconduct allegations made by a female colleague.
Dr. David Sabatini, a former MIT biology professor and prominent biomedical researcher, was awarded $6 million in damages Friday after a jury found that his former colleague, Dr. Kristin Knouse, had defamed him.
Quite a story.
***
Sunday/Caesar
“[O]ur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”--John Adams
The Gospel today is the "Give unto Caesar..." gospel. The wolves are circling. Christ has delivered three parables since his return to Jerusalem, and all are grim assessments of the organized Jewish religion; in the middle one about the tenants and the vineyard, he identifies himself as the Son of God. The Caesar question is asked to isolate him from either Rome or his religious followers. When asked a difficult "either-or" question, Christ answers "Yes." Almost vaudevillian.
If everything were not so serious, it would be funny. But this implies the government has certain responsibilities, certain authority that might be seen as "divine right." It certainly is not an anarchistic view.
Christ shows himself to be very understanding of our lives. He is willing to give the material world--the bustling business and marching political world--its place. But it is a limited place. The world has its demands, practical and real--working on the sabbath to rescue the family cow from a ditch. Christ does not begrudge us our practical anxieties. But he follows with the hugely diminishing clincher: While you understandably must render to Caesar what is his, so must you render what is God's to God. God and Caesar are not competitors because Caesar is part of the whole.
And so the great Caesar and giant Rome are allowed a large shadow, but in their very small world.
If everything were not so serious, it would be funny. But this implies the government has certain responsibilities, certain authority that might be seen as "divine right." It certainly is not an anarchistic view.
Christ shows himself to be very understanding of our lives. He is willing to give the material world--the bustling business and marching political world--its place. But it is a limited place. The world has its demands, practical and real--working on the sabbath to rescue the family cow from a ditch. Christ does not begrudge us our practical anxieties. But he follows with the hugely diminishing clincher: While you understandably must render to Caesar what is his, so must you render what is God's to God. God and Caesar are not competitors because Caesar is part of the whole.
And so the great Caesar and giant Rome are allowed a large shadow, but in their very small world.
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