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Sandra Day O'Connor takes the oath; the Supreme Court's all-male run ends after 192 years

Chief Justice Warren Burger administers the oath as her husband John looks on.

For 192 years, every justice who sat on the Supreme Court had been a man. That ended on September 25, 1981, when Sandra Day O'Connor, an Arizona Court of Appeals judge, took the judicial oath from Chief Justice Warren E. Burger with her husband John watching. President Reagan had nominated her in August to fulfill a campaign promise, and the Senate had confirmed her unanimously days earlier. She served on the Court until 2006…

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More from September 25
1789

Congress sends twelve amendments to the states, ten of them the Bill of Rights

Two other amendments ride along, one on congressional pay that would wait two centuries to become law.
1775

Ethan Allen surrenders outside Montreal after his flanks bolt and his backup never comes

Ninety minutes of fire, and the man who took Fort Ticonderoga without a shot is a British prisoner.
1997

Atlantis lifts off at night, headed for a wounded Russian station

Commander James Wetherbee's crew carries a French astronaut, David Wolf as a replacement for Michael Foale, and a repair spacewalk.
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The bill protects the South Fork of the Kaweah, Garfield Grove, and Hockett Meadow from the loggers already at work in the southern Sierra.
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Read the full September 25 edition →Everything that happened on September 25 →
More from Cold War America
1957

Eisenhower orders troops into Little Rock to open Central High's doors

The same Arkansas Guard Governor Faubus used to bar nine Black students is now ordered to protect them.
1964

Warren Commission hands Johnson its verdict: Oswald acted alone

Ten months of testimony from 552 witnesses ends with a single conclusion: no conspiracy, foreign or domestic.
1983

A Soviet screen shows five U.S. missiles inbound; the duty officer calls it a glitch

Stanislav Petrov had no proof the alarm was false, only a hunch that a real attack would look different.
1988

Discovery clears the tower; NASA flies again

Thirty-two months after Challenger, five veteran astronauts ride redesigned boosters off the pad at Kennedy Space Center.
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