September 21
During the American Revolution, American General Benedict Arnold meets with British Major John Andre to discuss handing over West Point to the British, in return for the promise of a large sum of money and a high position in the British army. The plot was foiled and Arnold, a former American hero, became synonymous with the word traitor. – 1780.
In Revolutionary France, the Legislative Assembly votes to abolish the monarchy and establish the First Republic. – 1792.
September 22
The Emancipation Proclamation is signed by United States president Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War to outlaw slavery. – 1862.
Eighteen-year-old Hannah (Annie) Shapiro leads a spontaneous walkout of 17 women at a Hart Schaffner & Marx garment factory in Chicago. It grows into a months-long mass strike involving 40,000 garment workers across the city in protest of 10-hour days, bullying bosses, and cuts in already-low wages. – 1910.
A would-be female assassin aims a gun at U.S. president Gerald Ford when he leaves the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco, Calif.. The attempt on the president’s life came only 17 days after another woman tried to assassinate Ford. The attempt was thwarted by a bystander, Oliver Sipple. – 1975.
Long-standing border disputes and political turmoil in Iran prompt Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to launch an invasion of Iran’s oil-producing province of Khuzestan. After initial advances, the Iraqi offense was repulsed. In 1982, Iraq voluntarily withdrew and sought a peace agreement, but the Ayatollah Khomeini renewed fighting. Stalemates and the deaths of thousands of young Iranian conscripts in Iraq followed. Population centers in both countries were bombed, and Iraq employed chemical weapons. In 1988, Iran agreed to a cease-fire. – 1980.
September 23
Amid much public excitement, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Mo., from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast and back. The Lewis and Clark Expedition had set off more than two years earlier to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. – 1806.
California governor Gray Davis (D) signs legislation making the state the first to offer workers paid family leave. – 2002.
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.
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.