Fifth Column & Fourth Estate Defined

I often run across this term in my reading and usually understand from the context that it is generally a bad organization. Then I Googled 'er (someone used it referring to the New York Times) and found out what it really means and from whence it came. Now, you too, have this little piece of information.

How was the term "fifth column" coined?

A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group, such as a nation, to which it is regarded as being loyal.

The term originated with a 1936 radio address by Emilio Mola, an insurgent general during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War. As his army approached Madrid, he broadcast a message that the four columns of his forces outside the city would be supported by a "fifth column" of his supporters inside the city, intent on undermining the Republican government from within (see Siege of Madrid).

In fact, this supposed "fifth column" did not prove very effective, as evidenced by the fact that Madrid held out until 1939 despite very heavy fighting. Nevertheless, the term caught on and was used extensively, especially by those fighting the Fascists and Nazis. It was especially in wide use in Britain in the early stages of the Second World War. There, fear of the "fifth Column" was used as justification for the mass internment, on the Isle of Man, of German nationals who were resident in the United Kingdom. From here:

Hey, as long as we're at it, why do they call the media "The Fourth Estate?"

The term Fourth Estate refers to the press. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century. Thomas Macaulay used it in 1828.

Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made the observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estates General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important (influential) than them all.'" More here: