Today in History

1788		After having been dissolved, the French Parliament of Paris reassembles in triumph.
1789		Congress passes the Judiciary Act of 1789, establishing a strong federal court system with the powers it needs to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution and federal law. The new Supreme Court will have a chief justice and five associate justices.
1842		Branwell Bronte, the brother of the Bronte sisters and the model for Hindley Earnshaw in Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights, dies of tuberculosis. Emily and Anne die the same year.
1862		Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus against anyone suspected of being a Southern sympathizer.
1904		Sixty-two die and 120 are injured in a head-on train collision in Tennessee.
1914		In the Alsace-Lorraine area between France and Germany, the German Army captures St. Mihiel.
1915		Bulgaria mobilizes troops on the Serbian border.
1929		The first flight using only instruments is completed by U.S. Army pilot James Doolittle.
1930		Noel Coward’s comedy Private Lives opens in London starring Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself.
1947		The World Women’s Party meets for the first time since World War II.
1956		The first transatlantic telephone cable system begins operation.
1957		President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine black students entering its newly integrated high school.
1960		The Enterprise, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, is launched.
1962		The University of Mississippi agrees to admit James Meredith as the first black university student, sparking more rioting.
1969		The “Chicago Eight,” charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot, go on trial for their part in the mayhem during the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention in the “Windy City.”
1970		The Soviet Luna 16 lands, completing the first unmanned round trip to the moon.
1979		CompuServe (CIS) offers one of the first online services to consumers; it will dominate among Internet service providers for consumers through the mid-1990s.
1993		Sihanouk is reinstalled as king of Cambodia.
1996		A comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is signed by representatives of 71 nations at the UN; at present, five key nations have signed but not ratified it and three others have not signed.
2005		Hurricane Rita, the 4th-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded, comes ashore in Texas causing extensive damage there and in Louisiana, which had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina less than a month earlier.
2009		LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) “sonic cannon,” a non-lethal device that utilizes intense sound, is used in the United States for the first time, to disperse protestors at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Penn.