September 25th

1513: Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches what would become known as the Pacific Ocean. In his day it was known as “that big drowning thing.”


1789: The U.S. Congress passes the Bill of Rights. It takes Muslims the next 231 years to figure out how to use it to build an inappropriate mosque at Ground Zero.


1912: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded as a place to put New York Times editors after they become too pompous to continue working even there.