This Day in History
On Sept. 28, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation voted to send the just-completed Constitution of the United States to state legislatures for their approval.
On this date:
In 1542, Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrived at present-day San Diego.
In 1781, American forces in the Revolutionary War, backed by a French fleet, began their successful siege of Yorktown, Va.
In 1892, the first nighttime football game took place in Mansfield, Pennsylvania, as teams from Mansfield State Normal and Wyoming Seminary played under electric lights to a scoreless tie.
In 1920, eight members of the Chicago White Sox were indicted for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. (All were acquitted at trial, but all eight were banned from the game for life.)
In 1928, Scottish medical researcher Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first effective antibiotic.
In 1939, during World War II, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a treaty calling for the partitioning of Poland, which the two countries had invaded.
In 1964, comedian Harpo Marx, 75, died in Los Angeles.
In 1976, Muhammad Ali kept his world heavyweight boxing championship with a close 15-round decision over Ken Norton at New York’s Yankee Stadium.
In 1989, deposed Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos died in exile in Hawaii at age 72.
In 1991, jazz great Miles Davis died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 65.
In 1993, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton went to Capitol Hill to begin selling the administration’s health care plan to Congress.
In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat signed an accord at the White House ending Israel’s military occupation of West Bank cities and laying the foundation for a Palestinian state. Ten years ago: President George W. Bush urged Congress to pass a $700 billion rescue plan for beleaguered financial companies, saying in a written statement, “Without this rescue plan, the costs to the American economy could be disastrous.”