Sept. 25
1513: Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean from the New World.
1789: The first U.S. Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification.
1956: The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable officially went into service with a three-way ceremonial call between New York, Ottawa, and London.
Sept. 26
1777: British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
1986: William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
2024: Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm, hit Florida’s Big Bend and tore through the Southeast, unleashing historic flooding in western North Carolina and Tennessee that caused $78 billion in damage and 219 deaths.
Sept. 27
1779: John Adams was named by Congress to negotiate the Revolutionary War’s peace terms with Britain.
1939: Warsaw, Poland, surrendered after weeks of resistance to invading forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.
1940: Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, formally allying the World War II Axis powers.
1964: The government publicly released the report of the Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
Sept. 28
1781: American forces in the Revolutionary War, backed by a French fleet, began their successful siege of Yorktown, Virginia.
1924: Three U.S. Army planes landed in Seattle, completing the first round-the-world trip by air in 175 days.
1928: Scottish medical researcher Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first broadly effective antibiotic.
Sept. 29
1789: Congress officially established a regular army under the U.S. Constitution.
1938: British, French, German and Italian leaders concluded the Munich Agreement, allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.
1965: President Lyndon Johnson signed an act creating the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sept. 30
1777: The Continental Congress — forced to flee advancing British forces — moved to York, Pennsylvania, after briefly meeting in Lancaster.
1791: Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute premiered in Vienna, Austria.
1947: The World Series was broadcast on television for the first time, as the New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-3 in Game 1.
1949: The Berlin Airlift came to an end after delivering more than 2.3 million tons of cargo to blockaded residents of West Berlin over the prior 15 months.
1955: Actor James Dean was killed at age 24 in a two-car collision.
Oct. 1
1890: Yosemite National Park was established by the U.S. Congress.
1908: Henry Ford introduced his mass-produced Model T automobile to the market. Between 1908 and 1927, Ford would build more than 15 million Model T cars.
1949: Mao Zedong, leader of the communist People’s Liberation Army, proclaimed the People’s Republic of China during a ceremony in Beijing.
1971: Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida.
1975: Muhammad Ali defeated Joe Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manila,” the last of their three boxing bouts for the heavyweight championship
