Percy Spencer Percy Spencer Percy Lebaron Spencer (July 19, 1894 – September 8, 1970) was an American physicist and inventor. He became known as the inventor of the microwave oven. Spencer was born in Howland, Maine. Eighteen months later, Spencer's father died, and his mother soon left him in the care of his aunt and uncle. His uncle then died when Spencer was just seven years old. Spencer subsequently left grammar school to earn money to support himself and his aunt. From the ages of twelve to sixteen, he worked from sunrise to sunset at a spool mill. At the later age,
Useful idiot it has recurred thereafter in the periodical's articles. A similar term, "useful innocents", appears in Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises' 1947 book, "Planned Chaos". Von Mises wrote that the term was used by Communists for liberals, whom von Mises describes as "confused and misguided sympathizers". The term useful innocents also appears in a 1946 "Reader's Digest" article titled "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World", written by Bogdan Raditsa, who had served the Yugoslav government-in-exile during World War II, supported Josip Broz Tito's partisans (though not a Communist himself) and briefly served in Tito's new Yugoslav government before leaving for New