September 24
The prophet Muhammad completes his Hegira, or flight, from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. In Medina, Muhammad set about building the followers of his religion, Islam, into an organized community and Arabian power. The Hegira later would mark the beginning (year 1) of the Muslim calendar. – 622.
The Judiciary Act of 1789 is passed by Congress and signed by president George Washington, which established the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement. – 1789.
September 25
The first Congress of the United States approves 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sends them to the states for ratification. The amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were designed to protect the basic rights of U.S. citizens. – 1789.
Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine black students enter all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.. Three weeks earlier, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National Guard troops to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration. After a tense standoff, president Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to Little Rock to enforce the court order. – 1957.
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice in history when she is sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger. – 1981.
September 26
For the first time in U.S. history, a debate between major party presidential candidates is shown on television. The presidential hopefuls, John F. Kennedy, a Democratic Party senator of Massachusetts, and Richard M. Nixon, the vice president of the United States, meet in a Chicago studio to discuss U.S. domestic matters. – 1960.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and committees in the Soviet legislature pass a bill to allow the publication of books, newspapers, and magazines without government approval. – 1989.
A ferry from Senegal capsizes off the coast of Gambia. Only 64 out of more than 1,000 passengers were rescued to make it one of the worst maritime disasters in history. – 2002.
September 27
U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt writes to German chancellor Adolf Hitler regarding the threat of war in Europe, especially in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. Hitler ignored the international community’s pleas for a peaceful solution and later invades Czechoslovakia in March 1939. – 1938.
September 28
Claiming his right to the English throne, William, duke of Normandy, invades England at Pevensey on Britain’s southeast coast. His subsequent defeat of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings marked the beginning of a new era in British history. – 1066.
In one of the worst maritime disasters of the century, 852 passengers die when the Estonia, a large car-and-passenger ferry, sinks in the Baltic Sea. – 1994.
September 29
On the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine, Jews are marched in small groups to the Babi Yar ravine north of the city, ordered to strip naked, and were machine-gunned into the ravine. The massacre ended September 30 and the approximate 34,000 Jewish dead and wounded were covered over with dirt and rock. The Babi Yar massacre became a symbol of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust. – 1941.
Seven persons suddenly die of unknown causes in northwest Chicago. Further investigation revealed that all seven took Tylenol capsules, which had been poisoned with cyanide. The culprit was never caught, but the mass murder led to new tamper-proof medicine containers. – 1982.
September 30
Black farmers meet in Elaine, Ark. to establish the Progressive Farmers and Householders Union to fight for better pay and higher cotton prices. They are shot at by a group of whites, and return the fire. News of the confrontation spread and a riot ensues, which leaves at least 100, perhaps several hundred blacks, dead and 67 indicted for inciting violence. – 1919.
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French premier Edouard Daladier, and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia to virtually hand it over to Germany in the name of peace. – 1938.