Pledge of Allegiance is first published in Boston.

Originally the “Salute to the Flag,” it is long thought to have been written by Francis Bellamy and edited by James Upham for Upham’s Youth’s Companion. Its purpose is to promote the magazine’s campaigns to promote the “Americanization” of immigrants and 400th anniversary of Columbus’ “discovery” of America,” and also to sell off surplus flags purchased as part of that effort. Recently, it has been is discovered that a version of the pledge, written by 13-year-old Frank Bellamy in response responding to those campaigns, was published in the Ellis County News Republican of Hays, Kansas on May 21, 1892. The pledge is first recited by school children across the U.S. on October 2, 1892. The words “under God” are inserted in 1954.