On this day, September 25: Sandra Day O'Connor sworn in as the first female Supreme Court Justice

1 of 3 | Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor delivers remarks before swearing in Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington on March 3, 2005. O'Connor was sworn in as the first female Supreme Court Justice on September 25, 1981. File photo by Dennis Brack/UPI | Licensed photo

Sept. 25 (UPI) – On this date in history:

In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.

In 1690, the first American newspaper appeared in Boston with the title “Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestic”.

In 1789, the first U.S. Congress passed twelve amendments to the Constitution. Ten of them were ratified and became known as the Bill of Rights.

In 1882, Major League Baseball's first doubleheader took place between teams from Providence, Rhode Island, and Worchester, Massachusetts.

In 1890, Sequoia National Park was established as the second national park in the United States. It was the first park created to protect a living creature.

In 1957, nine black students attended the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, under escort from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division.

UPI file photo

In 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 crashed in San Diego after colliding with a small Cessna plane. The crash killed 144 people, including seven on the ground.

In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first female justice of the United States Supreme Court.

In 1984, Jordan announced it would resume relations with Egypt, something no Arab country had done since 17 Arab states severed ties with Cairo under the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

In 1988, Pope John Paul II beatified six people, including the Rev. Junipero Serra, thus moving the Spanish-born Franciscan priest who founded missions in California in the 18th century and baptized thousands of Native Americans and converted them to the Roman Catholic faith away from canonization.

File photo by Stefano Spaziani/UPI

In 1992, a judge in Orlando, Florida, granted a 12-year-old boy's landmark request to “divorce” his mother.

In 1996, Israeli police opened fire on Palestinians who were rioting over a new tunnel entrance under the Temple Mount. The fighting ended four days later. About 70 people were killed and hundreds injured.

In 2008, federal regulators seized Washington Mutual, which officials said was the largest bank failure in U.S. history.

In 2010, a federal judge in California gave the green light to resume executions after a nearly five-year ban, while also reforming procedures and building a new execution chamber.

In 2011, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah granted women the right to vote and stand for election in local elections starting in 2015, but rejected an offer to allow them to drive.

In 2018, a Pennsylvania judge sentenced actor Bill Cosby to three to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually abusing Andrea Constand more than a decade earlier. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction and released him from prison in June 2021.

In 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the first woman to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, a week after she died of cancer at the age of 87.

In 2023, an explosion at a fuel depot in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan killed more than 200 people, mostly ethnic Armenians, during a mass exodus from the region to Armenia. Thousands of Armenians left the region in the wake of an Azerbaijani military offensive.