Also on this day
Lead Story
1957
Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine black students enter all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National Guard troops to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration. After a tense standoff, President Dwight D....
American Revolution
1775
After aborting a poorly planned and ill-timed attack on the British-controlled city of Montreal, Continental Army Colonel Ethan Allen is captured by the British on this day in 1775. After being identified as an officer of the Continental Amy, Allen was taken prisoner and sent to England to be executed.
Although...
Automotive
2004
On September 25, 2004, Chinese officials gather at the brand-new Shanghai International Circuit racetrack in anticipation of the next day’s inaugural Formula One Chinese Grand Prix. Though Formula One racing was traditionally a European sport, the builders and boosters of the state-sponsored Shanghai track–part of an elaborate complex called the...
Civil War
1864
Confederate President Jefferson Davis meets with General John Bell Hood at Hood’s Palmetto, Georgia, headquarters to discuss the recent misfortunes of the Army of Tennessee. Since Hood had assumed command of the army in July, he had launched an unsuccessful series of attacks on Union General William T. Sherman’s forces,...
Cold War
1959
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev caps his trip to the United States with two days of meetings with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The two men came to general agreement on a number of issues, but a U-2 spy plane incident in May 1960 crushed any hopes for further improvement of U.S.-Soviet...
Crime
1959
Mob assassins shoot Anthony Carfano, known as Little AugiePisano,to death in New York City on Meyer Lansky’s orders. Lansky, one of the few organized crime figures who managed to survive at the top for several decades, was estimated to have accumulated as much as $300,000,000 in ill-gotten gains by the...
Disaster
1978
A Pacific Southwest Airlines jet collides in mid-air with a small Cessna over San Diego, killing 153 people on this day in 1978. The wreckage of the planes fell into a populous neighborhood and did extensive damage on the ground.
David Lee Boswell and his instructor, Martin Kazy, were in the...
General Interest
1789
The first Congress of the United States approves 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sends them to the states for ratification. The amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were designed to protect the basic rights of U.S. citizens, guaranteeing the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and exercise of...
1981
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice in history when she is sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Sandra Day was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1930. She grew up on her family’s cattle ranch in southeastern Arizona and attended Stanford University, where she studied...
2005
Two months after announcing its intention to disarm, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) gives up its weapons in front of independent weapons inspectors. The decommissioning of the group s substantial arsenal took place in secret locations in the Republic of Ireland. One Protestant and one Catholic priest as...
Hollywood
1944
On this day in 1944, Michael Douglas, who will become one of Hollywood’s A-list stars in the 1980s with such blockbuster films as Wall Street and Fatal Attraction, is born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Douglas is the son of the Academy Award-winning actor Kirk Douglas, whose best-known films include...
Literary
1897
William Faulkner is born this day near Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner’s father was the business manager of the University of Mississippi, and his mother was a literary woman who encouraged Faulkner and his three brothers to read.
Faulkner was a good student but lost interest in studies during high school. He dropped...
Music
1970
Unwilling to rest as a one-hit wonder when its first big hit, The Monkees, went off the air in 1968, the television production company Screen Gems wasted no time in trying to repeat its success. On this day in 1970, in the 8:30 p.m. time slot immediately following The Brady...
Old West
1867
On this day in 1867, the pioneering cattleman Oliver Loving dies from gangrene poisoning in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. A few weeks before, Loving had been trapped by 500 Commanche braves along the Pecos River. Shot in the arm and side, Loving managed to escape and reach Fort...
Presidential
1894
On this day in 1894, President Grover Cleveland issues a presidential proclamation pardoning Mormons who had previously engaged in polygamous marriages or habitation arrangements considered unlawful by the U.S. government. At the time, and to this day, plural marriages between one man and multiple women; one woman and multiple men;...
Sports
1965
On September 25, 1965, the Kansas City Athletics start ageless wonder Satchel Paige in a game against the Boston Red Sox. The 59-year-old Paige, a Negro League legend, proved his greatness once again by giving up only one hit in his three innings of play.
Leroy Page was born on July...
World War I
1915
On September 25, 1915, following a four-day artillery bombardment along a six-and-a-half-mile front, British forces launch an attack on German positions at Loos, Belgium, beginning the Battle of Loos.
The British attack at Loos, led by Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the 1st Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), comprised...
World War II
1942
On this day in 1942, British bombers attempt to take out the local headquarters of the German secret state police, the Gestapo, in Norway. They miss–but send some Nazis running for their lives.
Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, in a stunning blitzkrieg campaign, a response to Britain’s laying of mines...
