GMT

Today in History September 24

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.

1862 President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus against anyone suspected of being a Southern sympathizer.

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.

2005 Hurricane Rita, the 4th-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded, comes ashore in Texas causing extensive damage there and in Louisiana, which had 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.


Born on September 24

1936 Jim Henson, puppeteer who created the "Muppets" in 1954 and television's Sesame Street.

1941 Linda McCartney, singer, photographer, activist; member of band Wings; former wife of Beatles member Paul McCartney.

1945 Louis "Lou" Dobbs, TV personality (Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN), radio host (Fox Business Network).

1946 "Mean Joe" Greene, pro football player (Pittsburgh Steelers) considered one of the greatest defensive linemen ever to play in the NFL; member of Pro Football Hall of Fame.

JOTD

Fresh out of gift ideas, a man buys his mother-in-law a large plot in an expensive cemetery. On her next birthday, he buys her nothing, so she phones him, furious.
“What are you complaining about?” he fires back. “You still haven’t used the present I gave you last year.”