Today in history
OnSept. 24, 1755, John Marshall, whowould become the fourth chief justice of the United States, was born near Germantown, Va.
In1789Congress passed the First JudiciaryAct, which provided for an attorney general and a Supreme Court. In1869financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market, sending Wall Street into a panic and leaving thousands of investors in financial ruin.
In1896author F. Scott Fitzgeraldwas born in St. Paul, Minn.
In1906President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill establishingDevils Tower inWyoming as the first national monument.
In1929Lt. JamesDoolittle piloted a ConsolidatedNY2 biplane over MitchelÖField in NewYork in the first “blind,” or all-instrument, flight.
In1934 Babe Ruthmadehis farewell appearance as a regular player with the New YorkYankees in a game against the BostonRed Sox. (The Soxwon, 5-0.) In1936Jim Henson, creator of theMuppets, was born in Greenville, Miss.
In1948Mildred Gillars, accused of being Naziwartime radio propagandist “Axis Sally,” pleaded not guilty in Washington to charges of treason. (Gillars ended up serving12 years in prison.)
In1955President Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while vacationing in Denver.
In1957 the BrooklynDodgers played their final gamein Ebbets Field, defeating Pittsburgh 2-0, beforemoving to Los Angeles.
In1960theUSS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Va.
In1963 theU.S. Senate ratified a treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union limiting nuclear tests.
In1964the sitcom“The Munsters” premiered onCBS.
In1976newspaper heiress Patricia-Hearstwas sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a1974 bank robbery. (Granted clemency byPresident Jimmy Carter, shewas released after 22 months.) Also in 1976, Prime Minister Ian Smith of white-ruled Rhodesia (nowZimbabwe) told his country he had agreed to a plan for black-majority rule within two years. In1991 children’s author Theodor Seuss Geisel, better knownas Dr. Seuss, died in La Jolla, Calif.; hewas 87.
In1995Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization agreed to sign a pact at the White House ending nearly three decades of Israeli occupation ofWest Bank cities.
In1996the United States, represented by President Bill Clinton, and theworld’s other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.
In1998new$ 20 bills redesigned to be harder to counterfeitwent into circulation.
In2000for the first time, citizens of theYugoslav federation— Serbia and Montenegro— voted directly for president.
In2001President GeorgeW. Bush froze the assets of 27 suspected terrorists and terrorist groups.
In2002British Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that Iraq had a growing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and planned to use them, as he disclosed an intelligence dossier to a special session ofParliament.
In2005Vice President Dick Cheney had surgery to repair aneurysms on the backs of both knees.
In2014theU. S. agreed to pay theNavajo Nation $554 million in a mineral income settlement, the largest obtained by a tribe against the federal government.
In2015a stampede among Muslim worship per sn ear the Saudi holy city ofMecca left more than 700 people dead and hundreds more injured at the height of the annual hajj pilgrimage.