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This Day In History

Activism

1957 Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine Black students - Thelma Mothershed Wair, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, and Melba Pattillo Beals - 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. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to Little Rock to enforce the court order.

Arts

2007 Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell releases her 19th studio album, Shine.

Law

1981 In 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O’Connor, an Arizona court of appeals judge, to be the first woman Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. On September 21, the Senate unanimously approved her appointment to the nation’s highest court, and on September 25 she was sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger.

Sports

2000 With her victory in the 400-metre dash at the Sydney Games, Cathy Freeman becomes the first Australian Aboriginal person to win an individual Olympic gold medal.