TITLE: September 24: Courts, Gold, Grunge, and Mars
September 24 has seen a young nation build its courts, a Wall Street scheme fall apart, a president send troops to enforce civil rights, and a spacecraft reach another planet. Here are seven moments that make this date worth remembering.
1. 1789 – The Judiciary Act Builds America's Courts
The U.S. Constitution created a Supreme Court but said almost nothing about how federal courts should work. Article III left the details to Congress. On September 24, 1789, President George Washington signed the Judiciary Act, which filled in those details. It set the Supreme Court at six justices (a Chief Justice and five associates) and created 13 district courts and three circuit courts. It also established the office of Attorney General. The Act's influence lasted far longer than anyone expected. Section 25 let the Supreme Court review state court decisions that involved federal law, which tied the new country together under one legal framework. In 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court struck down part of Section 13. That was the first time the Court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional, and it established the power of judicial review. On the same day he signed the Act, Washington nominated John Jay as the first Chief Justice. The Senate confirmed him two days later.
2. 1869 – Black Friday and the Great Gold Conspiracy
Long before "Black Friday" meant holiday shopping, it meant financial disaster. Financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk came up with a bold plan to corner the U.S. gold market. They would buy up gold, drive the price higher, and sell at a huge profit. The plan depended on keeping the federal government from selling its own gold reserves, so they recruited Abel Corbin, President Ulysses S. Grant's brother-in-law, to influence the president. For a while the scheme worked, and gold prices climbed steeply. Grant eventually realized what was happening. On September 24, 1869, he ordered the Treasury to sell $4 million in gold. The price dropped from about $160 to around $133 within minutes, and the Gold Room on Wall Street descended into chaos. The panic ruined many investors, sent stock prices sharply lower, and hurt the national economy for months. Gould and Fisk largely escaped consequences, helped by well-placed friends and lawyers. The episode became a lasting symbol of Gilded Age corruption and of the dangers of unregulated markets.
3. 1906 – Devils Tower Becomes America's First National Monument
Devils Tower rises about 867 feet from its base in northeastern Wyoming. It is a massive column of igneous rock with dramatic vertical grooves. Geologists still debate exactly how it formed, but most agree it is magma that cooled underground and was exposed over millions of years as softer rock wore away around it. On September 24, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed it the nation's first National Monument. He used the Antiquities Act, which he had signed only months earlier. The law let presidents protect landmarks quickly without waiting for Congress, and Roosevelt used it many more times, including to protect the Grand Canyon. Long before Roosevelt, the Lakota, Kiowa, Cheyenne, and other Plains nations held the tower sacred. Many know it as Bear Lodge, and it features in stories of a giant bear clawing at its sides. Many Americans later came to know it from Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
4. 1957 – Eisenhower Sends Troops to Little Rock
In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education ruled segregated public schools unconstitutional, but enforcing the ruling was another matter. In September 1957, nine Black students, later known as the Little Rock Nine, tried to enroll at Little Rock Central High School. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus sent the state National Guard to block them, and angry white mobs gathered outside the school. On September 24, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent about 1,000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. That evening he explained in a national address that mob rule could not be allowed to override federal court decisions. The next morning, soldiers escorted the nine students through the doors of Central High. It was the first time since Reconstruction that a president had sent federal troops into the South to protect Black Americans' civil rights. The students still faced daily harassment inside the school, but their courage, and the federal government's willingness to back it with force, marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement.
5. 1960 – The USS Enterprise Takes to the Water
On September 24, 1960, the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was launched at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. It was the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. At 1,123 feet long, it was the longest naval vessel ever built. It ran on eight nuclear reactors, so it could sail for years without refueling. Just a year after its 1961 commissioning, the Enterprise joined the naval quarantine of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the decades that followed, it served in Vietnam, the Cold War, and the conflicts after September 11, earning the nickname "the Big E" and a devoted following among the sailors who served aboard. The Navy retired the ship in 2012, after more than 50 years of service. Its design showed that nuclear power could keep large warships at sea almost indefinitely, and every U.S. supercarrier since has been nuclear-powered.
6. 1991 – Nirvana Releases Nevermind
When Nirvana released Nevermind on September 24, 1991, their label hoped it might sell a few hundred thousand copies. Instead, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," with its quiet-loud dynamics, became an anthem for a generation, and its music video played constantly on MTV. By January 1992, Nevermind had knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the Billboard 200. Butch Vig produced the album. It combined punk energy with strong pop melodies, and it brought the Seattle "grunge" scene into the mainstream almost overnight. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains soon reached huge audiences, and the polished hair-metal bands that had ruled the late 1980s quickly fell out of fashion. Nevermind has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, and its cover, showing a baby swimming toward a dollar bill on a fishhook, is one of the best-known album images ever. Kurt Cobain's discomfort with fame, and his death in 1994, gave the album an added sadness. It remains one of the most influential rock records ever made.
7. 2014 – India's Mangalyaan Reaches Mars
Reaching Mars is hard: roughly half of all missions to the Red Planet have failed. On September 24, 2014, India's Mars Orbiter Mission, nicknamed Mangalyaan ("Mars craft" in Sanskrit), fired its engine and entered Mars orbit. India became the first Asian nation to reach Mars and the first country in the world to succeed on its first attempt. The mission's low cost drew as much attention as its success. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spent about $74 million on it, less than the budget of the Hollywood film Gravity. Engineers kept costs down with a compact design, existing launch hardware, and a patient trajectory that used several orbits around Earth to build up speed before heading to Mars. Mangalyaan was designed to last six months but kept working for nearly eight years, sending back images and atmospheric data until contact was lost in 2022. Photos of women scientists in saris celebrating in mission control spread around the world and inspired young people across India and beyond.
Reflection: The Threads That Bind Us
These seven events span more than two centuries and cover law, finance, nature, civil rights, military engineering, music, and space exploration. They share a common thread: each one shows people testing the limits of what their institutions, technology, or culture could do. Washington's court system had its first major test in Marbury v. Madison, and Eisenhower's troops put it into practice on the steps of Central High. The ambition behind a nuclear carrier and the modest budget behind a Mars orbiter both show that bold goals can be reached in very different ways. History is not a list of distant dates. It is a chain of choices whose effects still reach us: the courts we rely on, the parks we visit, the music we grew up with, and the skies we keep exploring.