March 9, 1946: The Burnden Park Disaster

Burnden Park, Bolton, circa 1946

March 9, 1946, 80 years ago: A 2nd-leg tie of the Football Association Cup Quarterfinal is played at Burnden Park, a soccer stadium in Bolton, in what is now Greater Manchester, in the North-West of England. It ends in disaster -- and not because of the game itself.

This was the 1st FA Cup tournament held after World War II, and every round from the First Round Proper to the Sixth Round (the Quarterfinal) was held over 2 legs, 1 at each team's ground. (At the time, "stadium" seemed too grand a word for many of the venues in question). In the 1st leg of this round, at the Victoria Ground in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, Bolton Wanderers beat Stoke City 2-0.

For the return fixture, a crowd estimated at 85,000 people crammed into Burnden Park, a ramshackle structure built in 1895. Unlike in American baseball, there was no building boom in English football when concrete and steel stadiums became viable early in the 20th Century. Many of the old wooden structures were still in place as the Century neared its end.

And the crowds were bigger than ever, following the suspension of Football League and FA Cup competition at the dawn of the 1939-40 season, as the British Empire entered World War II. Buildings like Burnden Park were simply not designed with that many people in mind. Indeed, the gates were closed at 2:40 PM, 20 minutes ahead of the traditional English football kickoff time, because the stadium stewards didn't think any more people could fit in.

Shortly after the 3:00 kickoff, fans started spilling out of the Railway End, the stadium's north end, onto the pitch (the field). The referee, George Dutton, stopped the game, and had the pitch cleared. But two of the standing-room barriers on the End collapsed, and the crowd fell forward, crushing those underneath.

Unaware of this occurrence, Dutton restarted the game. But a police officer came onto the pitch to tell him that a fan had died. Dutton called over the Captains, Harry Hubbick of Bolton and Neil Franklin of Stoke, told them, and the players left the pitch.

After half an hour, in which the dead and injured were carried out, the game was restarted. Stanley Matthews, the Stoke superstar known as "The Wizard of Dribble," said that he was sickened by the decision. Not surprisingly, the game had little urgency, and ended 0-0. Thus, Bolton won 2-0 on aggregate, and advanced to the Semifinals.

It was later determined that 33 people had died, with over 400 injuries. It was the worst stadium-related disaster in British history, and it remained so until the Ibrox Park disaster in Glasgow, Scotland in 1971. It has also been surpassed by the Hillsborough Disaster in Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1989.

The FA Cup Semifinals were played on March 23. Bolton went to Villa Park in Birmingham, home of Aston Villa, and were beaten 2-0 by Charlton Athletic of South-East London. At Hillsborough Stadium, where the aforementioned 1989 disaster would occur, Birmingham City and East Midlands team Derby County played to a 1-1 draw. A replay was held on March 27 at Maine Road, home of Manchester City, and Derby won that game 4-0. The Final was played on April 27, at the original Wembley Stadium in West London, and Derby beat Charlton, 4-1 in extra time. There were no security or safety incidents at any of these games.

A benefit match for the Burnden Park victims was held on August 24, 1946, at Maine Road. The national teams of England and Scotland played to a 2-2 draw.

Following the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989, it was ruled that all British stadiums would be converted to all-seater. This doomed most of the old stadiums that hadn't already been modernized, as it became cheaper to build an entirely new stadium than to fix up and maintain the old one. Conversion to all-seater left Burnden Park with a capacity of around 25,000.

Burnden Park, near the end

In 1997, Bolton Wanderers moved to what's now known as the Toughsheet Community Stadium, with a seating capacity of 28,723. Burnden Park was demolished in 1999, and an Asda supermarket is now on the site.

March 9, 1776: "The Wealth of Nations" Is Published

March 9, 1776, 250 years ago: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith, is published in London by Strahan and Cadell. Just 3 weeks earlier, they had published Volume I of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon. The Wealth of Nations, as this book's title is usually shortened to, becomes the biggest-selling work of economics in history.

Adam Smith's date of birth is unknown, but he was recorded as having been baptized on June 5, 1723, in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, so it is generally accepted that he was born in Kirkcaldy a few days earlier, perhaps only one day.

His father, also named Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet (a senior solicitor), advocate and prosecutor (judge advocate), and also served as comptroller of the customs in Kirkcaldy. Smith's mother was born Margaret Douglas. Two months before Smith was born, his father died, leaving his mother a widow.

The father must have left the mother a good deal of money, because the son was able to attend the Burgh School of Kirkclady, described by a Smith biographer as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period." He entered the University of Glasgow at the age of 14, and graduated at 17. He moved on to Oxford University, and, based on his later writings, found it unsatisfying, learning more from the books in the Bodleian Library than from the professors.

In 1748, he began lecturing at the University of Edinburgh. Two years later, he met a literary and philosophical hero of his, David Hume. Smith would join Hume as a leading figure of what became known as the Scottish Enlightenment, and both are now featured in statues on the front of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.

In 1759, Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, with writings that would shock people who only know him as "the father of capitalism":

The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.

The success of this book allowed him to assume a tutoring position that facilitated travel throughout Europe, where he encountered intellectual figures of his era. In response to the prevailing policy of safeguarding national markets and merchants through the reduction of imports and the augmentation of exports, a practice that came to be known as mercantilism, Smith laid the foundational principles of classical free-market economic theory.

In 1776, he published The Wealth of Nations. In it, he developed the concept of division of labor, and expounded upon how "rational self-interest" and competition can lead to economic prosperity.

He laid out a system of political economy with the famous metaphor of the "invisible hand" regulating the marketplace through individual self-interest. He provided a comprehensive analysis of different economic aspects: The accumulation of stock, price determination, and the flow of labor, capital and rent. The book contained Smith's critique of mercantilism, and of high taxes on luxury goods. For these reasons, he and his book upheld as exemplars by economic conservatives.

But the book also contained things to which liberals could point. He criticized the slave trade, with which Britain and its colonies, including the soon-to-be United States, were then heavily involved. He also denounced monopolies, advocating for free competition and open markets.

He made the point that transportation of goods makes economies possible, and points out that the strongest nations had the strongest economies, because they had the best transportation: Access to the sea, including through wide harbors and wide rivers.

It explained why it could be predicted, though he did not do so, that New York would surpass London as the leading city in the world over the next 150 years. What Smith also could not have predicted was the rise of railroads, which helped both Britain and America more than the rest of the world; and the development of air travel and transport.

In other words, Smith had unwittingly predicted the rise of vast fortunes through railroad companies, but also the development of the suburbs of major cities that the railroads would develop, allowing the creation of a vast middle class, especially in the English-speaking world. And he unwittingly predicted how farm products could more easily get to the cities, making even agriculture a prosperous profession for a smart farmer.

In other words, Smith showed that increasing demand was the way to make an economy grow, not increasing supply. The supply-side economists of the late 20th Century totally misread him.

The book's 1st edition sold out in 6 months, causing William Strahan, publisher of both Smith and Gibbon, to write to a friend, "What you say of Mr. Gibbon's and Dr. Smith's book is exactly just. The former is the most popular work; but the sale of the latter, though not near so rapid, has been more than I could have expected from a work that requires much thought and reflection (qualities that do not abound among modern readers) to peruse to any purpose."

And to university professor and Enlightenment philosopher Adam Ferguson, Gibbon wrote, "What an excellent work is that with which our common friend Mr. Adam Smith has enriched the public! An extensive science in a single book, and the most profound ideas expressed in the most perspicuous language."

In 1778, Smith was appointed to a post as Commissioner of Customs in Scotland. From 1787 to 1789, he occupied the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. He died on July 17, 1790, in Edinburgh, after what is described only as "a painful illness." He was 67 years old. He never married, and is not known to have had any children.

March 5, 1946: Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" Speech

March 5, 1946, 80 years ago: Winston Churchill, as he had done many times before, turns a phrase that sticks in the collective consciousness of Western civilization.

Shortly after meeting with the new President of the United States, Harry Truman, at the Potsdam Conference outside Berlin in July 1945, he had to stand for election in Britain. His Conservative Party lost, and he had to resign as Prime Minister, although he was still Party Leader. He had more free time than before, and visited America the next year.

The British capital building is known as the Palace of Westminster. In Fulton, in Truman's home State of Missouri -- 111 miles west of St. Louis, 150 miles east of Kansas City, 23 miles southeast of the University of Missouri at Columbia, and 24 miles northeast of the State Capitol in Jefferson City -- there is a Westminster College. It offered Churchill an honorary degree, hoping he would come, accept, and deliver one of his rousing speeches, inspiring donations to the school. They couldn't have been more thrilled, because this is pretty much the only thing the school is known for today.

With Truman in attendance, Churchill gave a speech he had titled "Sinews of Peace." But that would not be the phrase anybody remembered.

Even by the time of the Yalta Conference in the Crimea in February 1945, when Churchill and the dying President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union's Red Army was occupying much of Eastern Europe. After pushing Nazi Germany back, there was little willingness to start a World War III with Communism before World War II with Fascism was over. Churchill came up with a plan, but he knew it would never see the light of day. He proved this by naming it "Operation Unthinkable."

The term "iron curtain" had been used to describe safety curtains, installed on theater stages to slow the spread of fire. In 1918, Vasily Rozanov, an anti-Communist writer opposing the Bolshevik Revolution, wrote a book titled The Apocalypse of Our Time. When translated into English in 1920 -- Rozanov having died in the Russian famine then still ongoing -- Churchill would have read Rozanov's words as:

With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, an iron curtain is lowering over Russian History. "The performance is over." The audience got up. "Time to put on your fur coats and go home." We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing.

Already having both a taste for the theatrical and a predisposition to oppose Communism, Churchill would have approved of Rozanov's metaphors.

Germany had long been fond of iron metaphors. The founder of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck, had begun the unification process with an 1862 speech titled "Blood and Iron" (Blud und Eisen), and so was known as "The Iron Chancellor." The country's top military decoration was the Iron Cross. And Adolf Hitler often invoked the legacy of Bismarck by speaking of "Blood and Iron" (or, alternatively, "Iron and Blood") So the Nazis, too, used the phrase "Iron Curtain."

A 1943 magazine named Signal discussed "the iron curtain that more than ever before separates the world from the Soviet Union." Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels wrote in Das Reich, on February 25, 1945, that, if Germany should lose the war, "An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered." In that, if in little else, he was right.

Churchill's first recorded use of the term "iron curtain" came in a May 12, 1945 telegram he sent to Truman, regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind." In another telegram to Truman, on June 4, he wrote of "...the descent of an iron curtain between us and everything to the eastward."

Now, at Westminster College, with Truman seated on the stage behind him, Churchill spoke of this new "border": 

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe: Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia. All these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence, but to a very high, and in some cases increasing, measure of control from Moscow.

Film of this speech shows that, at the words "iron curtain," he made a downward slashing motion with his left hand -- or, if you prefer, his left wing -- providing another fitting metaphor.

Churchill was a little off, geographically: Stettin, soon to be renamed Szczecin, as it was now part of Poland, was on the new border between Poland and East Germany; and Berlin, divided into 3 Allied and 1 Soviet sector, was to the west of that; while Trieste is in northeast Italy, on the border with what was then Yugoslavia, and is now Slovenia.

And Churchill (and, to be fair, Truman as well) did not yet realize that Yugoslavia's dictator, Josip Broz Tito, while he was a true believer in Communism, had already broken with Stalin, and thus his country was on the West's side of the Iron Curtain. And in 1955, Austria broke with the Soviets, and got away with it.

Nevertheless, the term had been used. The Cold War was on. As for that term, it appears to have been first used by George Orwell, in his 1945 essay, "You and the Atomic Bomb": He described a world living in fear of nuclear destruction, which he described as a "permanent state of 'cold war.'" Bernard Baruch, an advisor to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, used the phrase in a speech on April 16, 1947, saying: "Let us not be deceived: We are today in the midst of a cold war." Later that year, journalist Walter Lippman wrote a book titled Cold War, which helped solidify the term's use in the public consciousness.

On March 5, 1953, 7 years later to the day after Churchill's speech, Stalin died. But the Iron Curtain would live on until 1989 when, one by one, the countries behind it lifted their portions of it.

The term would be adapted. The borders between North and South Korea, and North and South Vietnam, and the Sea of Japan between Japan and Red China, became known as the Bamboo Curtain. And in America, black writers suggested that there was a Cotton Curtain that separated the segregationist Southern States from the rest of the country.

Maybe a line can be drawn across New Jersey, westward from the Outerbridge Crossing in Perth Amboy, along State Route 440, to Interstate 287, to where it meets U.S. Route 22 in Bridgewater, on west to the Delaware River in Phillipsburg, and that can be the Pork Roll Curtain, as an unofficial divider between people south of it, who call the processed meat by its legal name, "pork roll"; and people north of it, who call it by its incorrect and officially (if not enforced) illegal name, "Taylor ham."

Lou Holtz, 1937-2026

Lou Holtz has died. I will be (by my standards) brief, because I didn't like him:

Louis Leo Holtz was born on January 6, 1937 in Follansbee, West Virginia, not far from Wheeling, or from Pittsburgh. He grew up in nearby East Liverpool, Ohio, and attended nearby Kent State University, where he played linebacker. He was an assistant coach at Iowa, William & Mary, Connecticut, South Carolina, and on Woody Hayes' staff when Ohio State won the National Championship in 1968.

His 1st head coaching job was at William & Mary, from 1969 to 1971. He went just 13-20 with them, but he did get them into the 1970 Tangerine Bowl. This game, which became the Citrus Bowl, was then for what would now be Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams, or (before that) Division I-AA. In 1972, he was named head coach at North Carolina State. He coached them for 4 seasons, winning the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1973, and getting them into a bowl game every year, including winning the 1972 Peach Bowl and the 1973 Liberty Bowl.

In 1976, he got his 1st NFL job. It turned out to be his last. It was with the New York Jets, and Holtz tried to install the veer offense, a run-oriented offense. And the quarterback was Joe Namath. This was not the 1969 Namath with the cannon arm and the swagger, it was the 1976 Namath with 7 added years of pounding and two bad knees. He couldn't run it.

I think we should all be glad

this picture is not in color.

It was the 1970s, after all.

He wasn't the first college football coach to bomb out in the NFL, and he wouldn't be the last: The Jets went 3-10, with 2 of the wins being by 5 and 7 points. On December 9, with one game to go, and one step ahead of the law, Holtz quit, saying, "God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros."

Frank Broyles retired as head coach at the University of Arkansas. Since he was still their athletic director, he chose his successor, and he chose Holtz. In that 1st season, 1977, he took them to 11-1 and victory over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. Their only loss was 13-9 to Texas, costing them the Southwest Conference title. In 1979, they won the SWC title, but lost the Sugar Bowl to Alabama. They won the Hall of Fame Bowl in 1980, and the Bluebonnet Bowl in 1982.

In 1984, he left Arkansas to become head coach at Minnesota. In just 2 years, he got a program that had been doormats for a generation to victory in the 1985 Independence Bowl. It was the program's only bowl game win between the 1961 and 2002 seasons.

That got him hired by Notre Dame in 1986. In his 2nd season, he got them to the Cotton Bowl, but they lost. Like George Gipp, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Dan Devine, Lou Holtz led Notre Dame to the National Championship in just his 3rd season, going 12-0, including their Number 1 vs. Number 2 "Catholics vs. Convicts" game against the University of Miami, the defending National Champions. They capped it by beating West Virginia in the 1989 Fiesta Bowl.

They nearly did it again in 1989, losing only to revenge-minded Miami on Thanksgiving weekend. Their win in the Orange Bowl cost Colorado the National Championship, throwing it to Miami. Colorado avenged this loss in the next season's Orange Bowl, winning the National Championship.

Notre Dame won the Sugar Bowl in the 1991 season, and the Cotton Bowl in each of the next 2 seasons. But losses to Stanford in 1992 and Boston College in 1993 -- just 1 week after a Number 1 vs. Number 2 "Game of the Century" with Florida State -- cost them the National Championship both times.

His next 3 seasons were not as successful, and he retired after the 1996 season. The Minnesota Vikings offered him their head job, but he turned it down, and took a studio analyst job with CBS. In 1999, he took the job at South Carolina, going 0-11, before going 8-4 and 9-3, and winning back-to-back Outback bowls. He retired after going 8-4 in 2004, and went back to ESPN before retiring after the 2015 season.

His college coaching record was 249-132-7, including a 10-8-1 record in bowl games, for a winning percentage of .651. He won an ACC title, a SWC title, and the 1988 National Championship. He was beloved among college football fans, as both a coach and a broadcaster.

He was also a horrible person, supporting horrible people. In 1990, he supported the successful re-election campaign of race-baiting homophobic Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. In 2016, he spoke at the Republican Convention, endorsed Donald Trump, and criticized Colin Kaepernick for his kneeling in opposition to police brutality.

In the 2020 campaign, he again spoke at the Republican Convention, again endorsed Trump, made multiple appearances on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel show, supported Amy Coney Barrett's nomination for the Supreme Court, and said -- remember, he had been the head coach at the University of Notre Dame, a towering symbol of American Catholicism -- that Joe Biden was "a Catholic in name only." This statement was so foul that Notre Dame released a statement distancing itself from it.

Trump gave Holtz the Presidential Medal of Freedom, something he absolutely would not have done if Holtz had supported Democrats. Holtz was also elected to the Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame, the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, and the Indiana Sports Hall of Fame. Notre Dame does not have an intra-university Hall of Fame.

Lou Holtz died today, at age 89, in Orlando, Florida. He was predeceased by his wife, Beth Barcus, and was survived by 4 children, including 3 Notre Dame graduates.

One of those is Louis Leo Holtz Jr., a.k.a. Skip Holtz, who has been an assistant to Bobby Bowden at Florida State, offensive coordinator to his father at both Notre Dame and South Carolina, and head coach at Connecticut, East Carolina, South Florida and Louisiana Tech. For the last 4 seasons, he was the head coach of the UFL's Birmingham Stallions.

With the death of Lou Holtz, the earliest living former head coach of the Jets is now Bruce Coslet (1990-93); and the earliest living former Notre Dame head coach is Holtz's successor, Bob Davie (1997-2001).

I will close with a joke I heard while Holtz was still in South Bend. A man walks into a bar, and announces that he's the world's biggest Notre Dame fan. Nobody believes him. He tells the bar, "I've got a tattoo of Paul Hornung on one side of my ass, and Joe Montana on the other!" Both had been quarterbacks at Notre Dame. The bartender says, "Prove it!" So the guy drops his pants and moons the bartender. Talk about a "South Bend." The bartender says, "I don't see Hornung, and I don't see Montana, but that's definitely Lou Holtz in the middle!"

March 2, 1951: The 1st NBA All-Star Game

Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Garden,

and thus owner of the Boston Celtics (and Bruins),

and host of the game, flanked by the Celtics named to the game,

Ed Macauley (22) and Bob Cousy (14).

March 2, 1951, 75 years ago: The 1st NBA All-Star Game is played, at the Boston Garden.

The players for this game were chosen by sportswriters, without regard to position, and the only rule was that a writer could not select a player from his own city. On February 13, the NBA's President (the title wouldn't be "Commissioner" until 1967), Maurice Podoloff, announced the 10 players on each team.

From the Eastern Division, wearing white jerseys, coached by Joe Lapchick of New York:

* From the Baltimore Bullets: Center Red Rocha. This version of the Bullets went out of business in 1954. In 1961, the Chicago Packers were formed. They became the Chicago Zephyrs in 1962, the new Baltimore Bullets in 1963, then moved to the D.C. area for 1973-74, becoming the Capital Bullets. That name was every bit as dumb as a football fan might perceive "Chicago Packers" to be, so for 1974-75, they became the Washington Bullets. In 1997, they became the Washington Wizards.

* From the Boston Celtics: Guard Bob Cousy and center Ed Macauley.

* From the New York Knickerbockers: Forwards Vince Boryla and Harry Gallatin, and guard Dick McGuire. Then as now, hardly anybody used the team's full name: To all and sundry, they have been, and are, the Knicks.

* From the Philadelphia Warriors: Forwards Joe Fulks and Paul Arizin, and guard Andy Phillip. They became the San Francisco Warriors in 1962, then moved across the Bay to Oakland in 1971, becoming the Golden State Warriors. Despite moving back to San Francisco in 2019, they have kept the Golden State name.

* From the Syracuse Nationals: Forward Dolph Schayes. They moved in 1963, taking the Warriors' place in the City of Brotherly Love, becoming the Philadelphia 76ers.

From the Western Division, wearing blue jerseys, coached by John Kundla of Minneapolis:

* From the Fort Wayne Pistons: Forwards Larry Foust and Fred Schaus. They moved to Detroit in 1957.

* From the Indianapolis Olympians: Guard Ralph Beard and center Alex Groza. They went out of business in 1953.

* From the Minneapolis Lakers: Center George Mikan, and forwards Jim Pollard and Vern Mikkelsen. They moved to Los Angeles in 1960.

* From the Rochester Royals: Guard Bob Davies. They became the Cincinnati Royals in 1957, the Kansas City Kings in 1972, and the Sacramento Kings in 1985.

* From the Tri-Cities Blackhawks: Guard Frank Brian and forward Dwight Eddleman. This team was based in Moline, Illinois, and the region, which also includes Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa is now widely known as the Quad Cities. They became the Milwaukee Hawks the next season, the St. Louis Hawks in 1955, and the Atlanta Hawks in 1968.

Due to the limited size of the rosters, the NBA is the only one of the "Big Four" North American sports leagues that doesn't guarantee every team at least one player in its All-Star Game. Nevertheless, all 10 teams were represented. (The season had started with 11, but the Washington Capitols had gone out of business early on.)

The game was not broadcast on television, only on radio. At the end of the 1st quarter, the East led 31-22. At halftime, the East led 53-42. After 3 quarters, the East led 83-64. The final score was East 111, West 94.

Points scored, East: Macauley 20 for the game's Most Valuable Player award, Fulks 19, Schayes 15, Arizin 15, Boryla 9, Cousy 8, Rocha 8, Phillip 6, McGuire 6, Gallatin 5. West: Groza 17, Brian 14, Davies 13, Mikan 12, Mikkelsen 11, Schaus 8, Eddleman 7, Beard 6, Pollard 4, Foust 2. So everybody who got into the game scored. Schayes led all players with 14 rebounds, and McGuire did so with 10 assists.

Bob Cousy in 2023

At the age of 97, Cousy is the only surviving player.

March 1, 1526: The Tyndale Bible

March 1, 1526, 500 years ago: William Tyndale publishes a complete edition of the New Testament, a translation from the German edition published by Martin Luther into English.

Tyndale, born around 1494 in Gloucestershire in the West Country of England, had previously published an Old Testament in 1522. This meant he now had a complete Bible, the 1st one in the English language.

At this point, the most common Bible was the Vulgate, in Latin, the language of the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church, published in 1382 by John Wycliffe. Before reaching Rome, most Bibles were published in Greek; before that, in Aramaic, the native language of Jesus; with Old Testaments having been in Hebrew.

A surviving Tyndale New Testament,

in the British Library in London

Given England's expansionism around the world, in the 16th Century, and the Protestant Reformation around Europe, this was a major step forward in the Bible, a.k.a. "The Word of God," becoming accessible to people on their own terms, as was the Gutenberg Bible published in Germany in 1455, at the dawn of the printing press.

This allowed people to read the Bible for themselves, without simply being told what it said by their priests. The priests didn't like that. The Church hierarchy really didn't like that.

In 1528, Tyndale wrote The Obedience of a Christian Man, arguing that a country's monarch should be the head of its church. This gave him an ally in King Henry VIII of England, who used this book was part of his reason to break away from the Catholic Church, and form the Church of England, with himself as its head.

But the main reason he wanted to do that was because he wanted to divorce his 1st wife, Katherine of Aragon, and marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. The Catholic Church wouldn't let him do that, so he broke away.

And Tyndale sided with the Catholics on this, writing The Practice of the Prelates in 1530. That pissed Henry off, and Tyndale fled to the Duchy of Brabant. Big mistake: While now part of the Kingdom of Belgium, Brabant was then part of the Holy Roman Empire, which was Catholic. In 1535, Emperor Charles V ordered Tyndale's arrest; in 1536, Charles ordered Tyndale's execution. Tyndale was about 42 years old.

In 1539, Henry VIII, by then between his 3rd and 4th marriages, published The Great Bible, the 1st royally-authorized Bible in English. It was mostly the Tyndale Bible. In 1611, King James I published a new version, which has become known, naturally, as the King James Version. It has been estimated that 76 percent of its Old Testament is Tyndale's text, and 83 percent of its New Testament is.

The Tyndale Bible introduced into the English language such words as "Passover," "scapegoat" and "atonement"; the phrases "it came to pass," "the powers that be," "the signs of the times," "mercy seat" and "filthy lucre";

Phrases which had previously appeared in other Bibles, especially the Wycliffe Vulgate, but were made accessible in English due to Tyndale, include: "my brother's keeper," "a moment in time," "in the twinkling of an eye," "the salt of the earth," "judge not that ye be not judged," "knock and it shall be opened unto you," "seek and ye shall find," "ask and it shall be given you," "a law unto themselves," and "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

February 27, 1951: The 22nd Amendment Is Ratified

February 27, 1951, 75 years ago: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is ratified, when the Minnesota legislature approves it, becoming the 36th State to do so. That made it 36 out of 48, the three-quarters of the States necessary. The Amendment limits the President of the United States to two terms.

Congress passed the Amendment on March 21, 1947. It was a Republican-controlled Congress, the first since the 1929-30 session. They passed it as a slap at the memory of the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democrat who had won 4 elections, all by landslide wins over Republican candidates: Incumbent President Herbert Hoover in 1932, Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas in 1936, corporate lawyer with no political experience Wendell Willkie in 1940, and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York in 1944.

Except... the Republicans put in a grandfather clause, allowing the President at the time the Amendment was ratified to run for, and serve out, a 3rd term, if he so chose. It was a cynical move: They figured the Amendment wouldn't be ratified by the necessary 36 States until after January 20, 1949, the next Inauguration Day. And they were sure that the new President, Harry Truman, who took office after FDR's death on April 12, 1945, would be so unpopular that he would lose the 1948 election, and the Republican President who succeeded him would keep getting re-elected, and eventually surpass FDR's record of 12 years, 1 month and 8 days in office.

And when they held their 1948 Convention, they nominated Dewey again. He was only 46 years old. At the conclusion of 3 terms, in 1960, he would have been only 58, 4 years younger than FDR. (As it turned out, he lived until 1971, which, in the Republicans' dream scenario, would have been more than halfway through his 6th term.)

The Republicans had the timing right: The Amendment didn't pass until what would have been early in the 3rd year of Dewey's 1st term. But Truman won the 1948 election. So, had he so chosen, he could have run again in 1952, for what would have amounted to a 3rd term.

He decided not to. He was tired of the job, and his wife was tired of being First Lady. He said that if he had run again, "Bess would have impeached me."

Finally, in 1952, the Republicans got their next President. Ironically, the 1st 2 Presidents limited by the Amendment, and 3 of the 1st 4, were Republicans.

This begs the question: Which 2-term Presidents could have won a 3rd term, had they been eligible for it, and had they wanted it?

* Dwight D. Eisenhower, elected in 1952 and 1956. In 1960, "Ike" was 70 years old, the oldest President ever to that point. And he wanted to retire. But he was still popular. And, given that his considerably less popular Vice President, Richard Nixon, came close to beating Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, it's likely that Ike would have beaten him. Unless, of course, JFK figured that Ike probably couldn't be beaten in 1960, and had waited until 1964.

As we know, JFK was assassinated before he could start running for a 2nd term, let alone a 3rd. And his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, had started to run for a 2nd full term in 1968, but backed out. The 22nd Amendment allowed a President who had served less than 2 years of his predecessor's term to still serve 2 full terms.

Richard Nixon, one step ahead of impeachment, resigned nearly halfway through his 2nd term. Gerald Ford lost his bid for a term of his own in 1976. He would not have been eligible to run again in 1980. Jimmy Carter was, but lost. But since he only served one term, he could have run for another. Given that he is still alive at this writing, he could, theoretically, run again in 2024, when he would be 100 years old, and, if successful, be allowed to serve.

* Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980 and 1984. In 1988, he was 77, breaking Ike's record for oldest President. He might have wanted to serve a 3rd term, had he been allowed to. But, given that his mental capacity was already clearly in decline (for those willing to admit it), he probably would have been talked out of it. If he had run again in 1988, he was popular enough to win again. But by 1992, he, rather than his Vice President and successor, George H.W. Bush, would have been blamed for the recession, and his historical reputation would have been shattered.

* Bill Clinton, elected in 1992 and 1996. In 2000, he was 56, and still popular. Given that his Vice President, Al Gore, a man with a serious charisma deficit, actually beat Governor George W. Bush of Texas in the popular vote, Clinton would have destroyed Bush. Given Clinton's heart trouble in 2004, he might not have run for a 4th term. But, had that been taken care of, we could, theoretically, now be in Bill Clinton's 9th term as President. Ninth.

* George W. Bush, elected in 2000 and 2004. In 2008, he was 62, and very unpopular, due to a very rough recession and the Iraq War. He wouldn't have had a chance.

* Barack Obama, elected in 2008 and 2012. In 2016, he was 55, and still popular. And he had as much skill as Hillary Clinton, and none of her baggage. And we know from the birth certificate story of 2011 that he wouldn't have been timid about going after Donald Trump. He would have won.

When Obama left office, I joked: "The Republicans were determined to do anything to stop President Obama. Anything. So, after failing at everything else, they went back in time to 1947, and got a Constitutional Amendment passed, limiting the President to 2 terms. It worked."

It never occurred to Donald Trump's supporters that, if, as they so stupidly believed, he really did win again in 2020, then he wasn't eligible to be elected again in 2024.