September 24th

Today's Highlight in History:
On September 24th, 1789, Congress passed the First Judiciary Act, which provided for an attorney general and a Supreme Court.

On this date:
In 1869, thousands of businessmen were ruined in a Wall Street panic after financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market.

In 1896, author F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In 1929, Lieutenant James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY-2 Biplane over Mitchel Field in New York in the first all-instrument flight. (Shown in 1991 picture.)

In 1955, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while on vacation in Denver.

In 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-to-0.

In 1960, the USS "Enterprise," the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Virginia.

In 1963, the US Senate ratified a treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union limiting nuclear testing.

In 1969, the trial of the "Chicago Eight" (later seven) began. (Five of the defendants were convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention, but the convictions were ultimately overturned.)

In 1976, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery. (She was released after 22 months after receiving clemency from President Carter.)

In 1998, the government began releasing the new, harder-to-counterfeit 20-dollar bill.

Ten years ago: The Supreme Soviet voted to give preliminary approval to a plan for switching the Soviet Union to a free-market economy. South African President F.W. de Klerk met at the White House with President Bush.

Five years ago: Israel and the PLO agreed to sign a pact at the White House ending nearly three decades of Israeli occupation of West Bank cities. A 16-year-old boy in Cuers, France, killed 13 people before turning a gun on himself.

One year ago: Oregon teenager Kip Kinkel, who killed his parents and gunned down two classmates at school, abandoned an insanity defense and pleaded guilty to murder. (He was later sentenced to 112 years without parole.) A jury acquitted former Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti of the 1979 killing of a journalist.

"The easiest way to get a reputation is go outside the fold, shout around for a few years as a violent atheist or a dangerous radical, and then crawl back to the shelter."

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940).