'Third-world' is a Cold War concept. It doesn't apply to anything prior to 1948. If you tried to decree who was 'frist world' at various times you would have Egypt, Greece, China, the Roman space, India, the Islamic space, Western Europe. Today it's USA/Europe. This may no longer be the case 100 years from now.
mafree said virutally the same thing, in that the definition of it changes over time. But I don't think the Cold War had anything to do with the overall concept.
No matter. Tell me this, then. Why did Pat add this to his article? It appears to be totally out of joint with the rest of what he was attempting to say.