September 23, 1869:  “Typhoid Mary” Mallon born in Ireland–determined to be a “healthy carrier” of a communicable disease. She ended her life in quarantine. In 1906 she was judged to have picked up typhoid fever from a Long Island family for whom she worked as a cook.

September 24, 1960:  USS Enterprise launched. Now decommissioned, the US Navy aircraft carrier was the world’s first nuclear-powered vessel. Measuring 1,123 feet, it was also (and remains) the longest naval vessel in the world.

September 25, 1789:  US Congress approves Bill of Rights.

September 25, 1957:  Little Rock Nine are integrated. Nine African- American students completed their first full day of classes at the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Their admission was a test of the US Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. Despite facing racist taunts and violence, eight of those nine students completed school at Central High.

September 25, 2005:  Irish Republican Army (IRA)–established in 1919 to offer military opposition to British rule of Ireland–formally disarms itself, surrendering all arms, ammunition, missiles, and explosives.

September 26, 1580:  Francis Drake completes circumnavigation of the globe, returning to Plymouth, England, from where he had set sail in a ship called Golden Hind on December 13, 1577.

September 26, 1960:  First televised presidential debate takes place, between Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy.

September 27, 1998:  Google, founded by Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, marks its official birthday.

September 28, 1781:  Siege of Yorktown begins, ending October 19. In what would be the last major land battle of the Revolutionary War, the siege was a combined effort of American and French forces against British troops on a peninsula in Yorktown, Virginia.

September 28, 1928:  Penicillin is accidentally discovered by Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming.

September 28, 1978:  Pope John Paul I, formerly Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice, died after just 33 days, one of the shortest papacies in history. He was succeeded by John Paul II.

September 28, 1995:  Israel-Palestinian peace accord signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat.

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