September 19
Between 400,000 to 500,000 unionists converge on Washington, D.C. for a Solidarity Day march and rally to protest Republican policies. – 1981.
A powerful earthquake strikes Mexico City and leaves 10,000 residents dead, 30,000 injured, and thousands more homeless. – 1985.
September 20
Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, sets sail from Spain in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific. – 1519.
U.S. military spokesmen defend the use of defoliants, such as Agent Orange in Vietnam. Years later the Vietnamese citizens exposed to the compounds were subject to abnormally high incidence of miscarriage and congenital malformation. – 1968.
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.
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.
Approximately 400,000 coal miners strike for higher wages in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, and Ohio. – 1935.
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 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.