Today:
1789 – The U.S. Congress adjourned its first session under the newly adopted Constitution. During the session, Congress established much of the new federal government and proposed the amendments that became the Bill of Rights.
1829 – London’s Metropolitan Police began operating. The force was established by Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel, whose name inspired the nicknames “Bobbies” and “Peelers” for British police officers.
1916 – John D. Rockefeller became widely recognized as the world’s first billionaire, largely due to the rising value of his holdings in Standard Oil and other investments.
1923 – The British Mandate for Palestine officially came into effect under the authority of the League of Nations.
1954 – CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, was formally established when its founding convention came into force. It would become one of the world’s leading centers for particle physics.
1962 – Canada’s Alouette 1 satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Canada became the third country, after the Soviet Union and United States, to design and build its own satellite.
1966 – The Chevrolet Camaro went on sale for the first time. Chevrolet introduced the new model to compete directly with the hugely successful Ford Mustang.
1982 – The first reported deaths in the Chicago Tylenol murders occurred. Seven people ultimately died after taking capsules that had been deliberately contaminated with cyanide, leading to major changes in tamper-resistant packaging.
1988 – NASA launched the Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-26, the first Space Shuttle mission since the Challenger disaster in January 1986.
2008 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 777.68 points after the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion financial-system rescue plan. At the time, it was the largest single-day point decline in the Dow’s history.