On October 3, 1990, the German Democratic Republic was absorbed by the Federal Republic of Germany, reunifying the country for the first time since the Second World War. Today, the event is marked annually by German Unity Day. Read the Unification Treaty, signed in Berlin on August 31, 1990.
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On October 3, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson, standing in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The Act ordered the elimination of the national origins quota system established in 1882 in favor of a worldwide quota blind to national origin. Immigration [...]
On October 2, 1967, civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African-American Supreme Court justice Learn more about Marshall and his career from the Library of Congress.
On October 2, 1997, European Union delegates signed the Amsterdam Treaty, which broadened the scope of the international organization. It amended previous EU treaties to expand the power of the EU Parliament, start the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and prepare for the influx of post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe.
On October 1, 1924, William Rehnquist, late Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Read remarks by President Ronald Reagan at the swearing-in ceremony for Chief Justice Rehnquist (joined by new Associate Justice Antonin Scalia).
On October 1, 1989, the Registered Partnership Act went into effect in Denmark. It was the first law in the world that allowed civil unions between homosexual couples. Read a report on the world’s first civil unions from the New York Times.
On September 30, 2004, the pharmaceutical company, Merck, pulled its arthritis drug, Vioxx from the worldwide market, due to strokes and heart attacks in patients, but the move did not stop over 45,000 former users and their families from suing Merck. The plaintiffs, however, have struggled to collect damages awarded to them in successful litigations. [...]
On September 30, 1946, the international military tribunal constituted by the Allied powers in Nuremberg, Germany, found 22 Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes committed during World War II.
On September 29, 1954, twelve European nations signed a convention, creating the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The laboratory was later constructed in Geneva, Switzerland. Learn more about the history of CERN.
On September 29, 1983, Congress invoked the War Powers Act for the first time, authorizing President Ronald Reagan to keep US Marines in Lebanon for another 18 months.
