In 1915, the widowed president Woodrow Wilson met and married Edith Bolling Galt, whose own husband had died some years earlier. Wilson’s courtship of Galt was short, a fact often remarked upon by the press. Still, no sly joke caused as many red faces as a typo that appeared in the Washington Post. In an account of the goings-on at a local theatre, the Post meant to run the sentence “rather than paying attention to the play the President spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt.” Instead, it appeared in the paper as ”rather than paying attention to the play the President spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.” The Post quickly realized the error and pulled the issue, but a few copies remained in circulation. For more gossip from the annals of history, see Politics, the Fall 2012 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly.

In 1915, the widowed president Woodrow Wilson met and married Edith Bolling Galt, whose own husband had died some years earlier.

Wilson’s courtship of Galt was short, a fact often remarked upon by the press. Still, no sly joke caused as many red faces as a typo that appeared in the Washington Post. In an account of the goings-on at a local theatre, the Post meant to run the sentence “rather than paying attention to the play the President spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt.” Instead, it appeared in the paper as ”rather than paying attention to the play the President spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.” The Post quickly realized the error and pulled the issue, but a few copies remained in circulation.

For more gossip from the annals of history, see Politics, the Fall 2012 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly.