Sept. 18
2020: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a towering champion of women’s rights who became the court’s second female justice, died at age 87.
1850: Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which created a force of federal commissioners charged with returning escaped slaves to their owners.
1970: Rock star Jimi Hendrix died in London at age 27.
Sept. 19
1796: President George Washington’s farewell address was published. In it, America’s first chief executive advised, “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”
1881: The 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, died 2½ months after being shot by Charles Guiteau.
1957: The United States conducted its first contained underground nuclear test, code-named “Rainier,” in the Nevada desert.
Sept. 20
1519: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew left Spain on five ships to find a western route to the Spice Islands. Magellan was killed en route, but one ship completed the first circumnavigation of the globe.
1962: James Meredith, a black student, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Democratic Gov. Ross R. Barnett.
1973: In their so-called “Battle of the Sexes,” tennis star Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets, 6–4, 6–3, 6–3.
Sept. 21
1922: President Warren Harding signed the Lodge-Fish Resolution, a Congressional resolution endorsing the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
1937: “The Hobbit,” by J.R.R. Tolkien, was first published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. of London.
1981: The Senate unanimously confirmed Sandra Day O’Connor as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.
1989: Hurricane Hugo crashed into South Carolina; the storm was blamed for 56 deaths in the Caribbean and 29 in the United States.
Sept. 22
1776: During the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.
1862: President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, stating enslaved people in Confederate states would be freed as of Jan. 1, 1863, if the states did not rejoin the Union.
1975: Sara Jane Moore fired two shots in a failed attempt to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel.
Sept. 23
1806: The Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis, more than two years after setting out for the Pacific Northwest.
1952: Sen. Richard M. Nixon, R-Calif., salvaged his vice presidential nomination with a televised “Checkers” speech, denying fundraising allegations and referencing his family’s cocker spaniel.
1955: A jury in Sumner, Mississippi, acquitted two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, of killing Black teenager Emmett Till.
Sept. 24
1869: Thousands were ruined in a Wall Street panic known as “Black Friday” after Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market.
1906: President Theodore Roosevelt established Devil’s Tower in Wyoming as the first U.S. national monument.
1957: The Los Angeles-bound Brooklyn Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-0.
1960: The USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Virginia.
