On October 21, 1892, schoolchildren across the U.S. observed Columbus Day (according to the Gregorian calendar) by reciting, for the first time, the original version of “The Pledge of Allegiance,” written by Francis Bellamy for The Youth’s Companion. The pledge, which has been revised several times, originally went, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Ten years ago

Hurricane Wilma tore into Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula as a Category 4 storm, after killing 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica. The Kansas Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law that punished underage sex more severely if it involved homosexual acts, saying “moral disapproval” of such conduct was not enough to justify the different treatment.

Five years ago

Eight current and former officials pleaded not guilty to looting millions of dollars from California’s modest blue-collar city of Bell. (Seven defendants ended up being convicted, and received sentences ranging from home confinement to 12 years in prison.)

One year ago

In South Africa, Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp; legal analysts said under the law, the man known as the “Blade Runner” because of his carbon-fiber running blades, would have to serve 10 months, or one-sixth of his sentence, in prison before he was eligible for house arrest. North Korea abruptly freed Jeffrey Fowle, an American, nearly six months after he was arrested for leaving a Bible in a nightclub.

— By The Associated Press