On this date
In 1788, the United States Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.
In 1834, Cyrus Hall McCormick received a patent for his reaping machine.
In 1942, an Imperial Japanese submarine fired shells at Fort Stevens on the Oregon coast, causing little damage.
In 1963, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini was chosen during a conclave of his fellow cardinals to succeed the late Pope John XXIII; the new pope took the name Paul VI.
In 1964, civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. (Forty-one years later on this date in 2005, Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, was found guilty of manslaughter; he was sentenced to 60 years in prison.)
In 1989, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.
In 1997, the WNBA made its debut as the New York Liberty defeated the host Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.
Ten years ago: Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. nuclear envoy, made a rare trip to North Korea in a surprise bid to accelerate international efforts to press the communist government to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Five years ago: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously threw out penalties against Fox and ABC television stations that violated the Federal Communications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on television, but the justices declined to issue a broader constitutional ruling.
One year ago: The Obama administration approved routine commercial use of small drones in areas such as farming, advertising and real estate after years of struggling to write rules to protect public safety.