Today in History....September 25

On this day in …

1789, the first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)

1894, President Grover Cleveland issues a presidential proclamation pardoning Mormons who had previously engaged in polygamous marriages or habitation arrangements considered unlawful by the U.S. government. At the time, and to this day, plural marriages between one man and multiple women; one woman and multiple men; or multiple men and women are illegal in the United States. (The Mormons formally renounced polygamy on this day in 1890)
1919, President Wilson collapsed from a stroke after a speech in Pueblo, Colo., during a national speaking tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles

1956, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service

1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev caps his trip to the United States with two days of meetings with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The two men came to general agreement on a number of issues, but a U-2 spy plane incident in May 1960 crushed any hopes for further improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations during the Eisenhower years

1981, Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court

1996, Israel's decision to open an archaeological tunnel near the Temple Mount spurred thousands of practitioners of that "religion of peace", standing in the shadow of their mosque, to start bombarding worshipers a few hundred feet below, at the Western Wall, with large stones

2001, former Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan announced he was returning to play professional basketball, with the Washington Wizards

2005, two months after announcing its intention to disarm, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) gives up its weapons in front of independent weapons inspectors. The decommissioning of the group's substantial arsenal took place in secret locations in the Republic of Ireland