Today’s American Minute

By Bill Federer

Oxford historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee died this day, Oct. 2, 1975. He had worked for the British government doing foreign intelligence and research and was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conferences following World Wars I and II. Gaining international acclaim for his history books, Arnold Joseph Toynbee wrote: “The course of human history consists of a series of encounters … in which each man or woman or child … is challenged by God to make [the] free choice between doing God’s will and refusing to do it. When Man refuses, he is free to make his refusal and to take the consequences.”