What Happened on September 24

Asian Space

2014 — India's Probe Enters Mars Orbit on Debut Try

India's $74 million probe completed a 298-day journey, firing its engine for 24 minutes to become the first nation's debut success at reaching Mars.

The age of planetary exploration, long dominated by Cold War rivals and wealthy Western agencies, took an unexpected turn today as a modest spacecraft fired its engines and slipped into orbit around Mars. India's Mars Orbiter Mission, launched last November on a budget of roughly $74 million, achieved what no nation had before: success on the very first attempt.

The Indian Space Research Organisation confirmed that the probe, nicknamed Mangalyaan, completed its 298-day journey and fired its main engine for 24 minutes to slow into a looping ellipse above the Martian surface. The $74 million price tag, a fraction of what NASA or European missions cost, drew particular notice in an era of fiscal austerity across Western space programs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, watching from ISRO's Bangalore control center, hailed the achievement as a milestone for India's 1.2 billion citizens.

• The Mars Orbiter Mission makes India the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit, and the first nation in the world to do so in its first attempt.

Source: Wikipedia — Mars Orbiter Mission

Simla Correspondence

1932 — Gandhi and Ambedkar Sign Pact on Depressed Classes

Agreement reserves legislature seats for India's Untouchables.

Mahatma Gandhi, emerging from three days of private negotiation, put his signature this morning to an accord that alters the political map of British India. The Poona Pact, negotiated with Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, grants the so-called Depressed Classes reserved representation in provincial legislatures while abandoning the separate electorate scheme that had driven Gandhi to the edge of death by fasting.

The agreement, hammered out in a Bombay suburb, secures 148 reserved seats for Untouchables across eleven provinces, more than the 78 promised under the now-scrapped Communal Award.

• Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar agree to the Poona Pact, which reserved seats in the Indian provincial legislatures for the "Depressed Classes" (Untouchables).

Source: Wikipedia — Mahatma Gandhi

Federal Desk

1957 — Eisenhower Dispatches 101st Airborne to Little Rock

President orders paratroopers to enforce school desegregation.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, today, federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and sending regular Army troops to enforce court-ordered desegregation at Central High School.

The president spoke with paratroopers before their deployment to Arkansas, telling them the nation's honor and international standing were at stake.

• President Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation.

Source: Wikipedia — 101st Airborne Division

Western Bureau

1906 — Roosevelt Names Devils Tower First National Monument

The volcanic butte stands 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River.

President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower in Wyoming the nation's first National Monument today, exercising authority granted by the Antiquities Act he signed into law last June.

The volcanic butte, rising 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River, becomes the inaugural holding in a system intended to protect natural wonders from private exploitation.

• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation's first National Monument.

Source: Wikipedia — Devils Tower

South Asia Bureau

2013 — Powerful Quake Kills 327 in Southern Pakistan

7.7-magnitude tremor levels villages in remote Balochistan province.

Dust still hung over the rubble when the first casualty counts reached Karachi. A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck southern Pakistan early Tuesday, killing at least 327 people and flattening mud-brick homes across vast stretches of Balochistan province.

The quake's epicenter lay in the thinly populated district of Awaran, where rescue teams faced roads buckled and blocked by landslides. Army helicopters carried medical teams to remote villages that had not yet reported their dead.

Pakistan's Geological Survey recorded the tremor at 4:29 p.m. local time.

• A 7.7-magnitude earthquake strikes southern Pakistan, killing at least 327 people.

Source: Wikipedia — Moment magnitude scale

National Affairs

1964 — Warren Commission Hands Johnson Report Citing Lone Assassin

888-page study finds Oswald acted alone; no conspiracy found.

The official verdict on the nation's most traumatic crime arrived in a plain binder this morning, closing ten months of investigation with a single gunman and no conspiracy. The Warren Commission presented its 888-page report to President Johnson, concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted entirely alone in assassinating President Kennedy and that Jack Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald.

• The Warren Commission's 888-page final report was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964.
• The report concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald acted entirely alone.
• The Commission also concluded that Jack Ruby acted alone when he killed Oswald two days after the assassination.
• The Commission found no evidence that either Oswald or Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign.
• The Commission concluded that the shots killing Kennedy and wounding Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.

Source: Wikipedia — Warren Commission

Gulf Coast Desk

2005 — Hurricane Rita Slams Louisiana and Texas Coast

Storm makes landfall three weeks after Katrina's devastation.

Barely three weeks after Hurricane Katrina submerged New Orleans, another massive storm traced the same warm Gulf waters toward a coastline still hauling debris. Hurricane Rita made landfall Saturday, devastating portions of southwestern Louisiana and extreme southeastern Texas with sustained winds that peaked at 120 miles per hour.

The storm struck near the Texas-Louisiana border as a Category 3 hurricane, smaller than the Category 5 peak forecasters had feared but still packing storm surge that overtopped refinery towns and low-lying parishes.

• Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating portions of southwestern Louisiana and extreme southeastern Texas.

Source: Wikipedia — Hurricane Rita

Shipbuilding & Defense

1960 — Nuclear Carrier Enterprise Launched at Newport News

World's first atomic-powered flattop enters the water.

The USS Enterprise slid down the ways at Newport News Shipbuilding this morning, 1,123 feet of steel and reactor plant that rewrote naval architecture in a single splash. The world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier entered the water before 15,000 spectators, including Navy Secretary William Franke and Admiral Arleigh Burke.

Eight reactors drive the 85,000-ton vessel, giving it range limited only by crew endurance and supplies. The ship will carry 100 aircraft when commissioned next year.

• USS Enterprise, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched.

Source: Wikipedia — USS Enterprise (CVN-65)

Tokyo Industrial Beat

1948 — Honda Motor Company Opens Tokyo Headquarters; Soichiro Honda Leads New Auto Venture

1948: Japan's postwar manufacturing sector gains its boldest new entrant yet.

One hundred fifty employees.

That is the starting payroll as Honda Motor Company Ltd. formally opens its doors in Tokyo this September, with founder Soichiro Honda, 41, at the helm. The firm enters Japan's devastated postwar economy not with complete automobiles but with auxiliary motors—small gasoline engines that clip onto bicycles.

Honda, a former automotive mechanic and self-taught engineer, has spent two years perfecting the design at his Hamamatsu workshop. His Type-A motor, essentially a repurposed wartime generator, now powers roughly 500 units monthly. The Tokyo headquarters will coordinate manufacturing and sales nationwide.

The company's capital stands at ¥1 million.

• The Honda Motor Company is founded.

Source: Wikipedia — Honda

Paris Scientific Intelligence

1852 — Giffard Dirigible Completes First Powered, Passenger-Carrying Airship Flight Over France

1852: Seventeen miles from Paris to Trappes, with steam engine and propeller.

Henri Giffard has flown a steam-powered dirigible from Paris to Trappes, covering seventeen miles with a passenger aboard—the first powered, steerable airship voyage in history.

The craft, 144 feet long and filled with hydrogen, lifted from the Paris Gas Works at 5:00 postmeridian. Giffard's three-horsepower steam engine drove a twenty-foot propeller at 110 revolutions per minute.

• The first powered, passenger-carrying airship, the Giffard dirigible, travels 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to Trappes.

Source: Wikipedia — Giffard dirigible

Federal Hall Dispatch

1789 — Washington Signs Judiciary Act; Supreme Court Fixed at Six Members

1789: President establishes federal courts, Attorney General post, and thirteen judicial districts.

At Federal Hall in New York, President George Washington affixed his signature to the Judiciary Act of 1789, erecting the federal judiciary and fixing Supreme Court membership at six—one chief justice and five associates.

The act creates thirteen judicial districts across eleven ratifying states.

• The act set the number of Supreme Court justices at six: one chief justice and five associate justices.
• President George Washington signed the act into law on September 24, 1789.
• The act created 13 judicial districts within the 11 states that had then ratified the Constitution.
• The act created the Office of Attorney General, whose primary responsibility was to represent the United States before the Supreme Court.
• The bill passed the Senate 14–6 on July 17, 1789, and the House passed an amended bill 37–16 on September 17, 1789.

Source: Wikipedia — Judiciary Act of 1789

Colonial Commerce

1946 — Cathay Pacific Opens Hong Kong-Asia Air Service

British and Dutch carriers lose their exclusive hold on regional routes as the Crown Colony gains its own long-distance airline serving Asian mainland destinations.

Hong Kong gains its own long-distance airline as Cathay Pacific Airways commences operations, linking the Crown Colony to Asian mainland destinations and breaking British and Dutch carriers' regional monopoly.

• Cathay Pacific Airways is founded in Hong Kong.

Source: Wikipedia — Cathay Pacific

Planetary Sciences Desk

2023 — OSIRIS-REx Capsule Returns With Asteroid Cargo

The capsule that parachuted into Utah on Sunday completed a mission to asteroid 101955 Bennu.

The age of sample-return missions reached its crescendo Sunday when NASA's OSIRIS-REx capsule parachuted into the Utah desert bearing rocks and dust from asteroid 101955 Bennu.

• NASA's OSIRIS-REx capsule containing samples from the asteroid 101955 Bennu successfully lands back on Earth.

Source: Wikipedia — OSIRIS-REx