Mark The Day

On July 2, 1865, William Booth and his wife, Catherine Booth, founded the Christian Mission in London's East End. Their goal was to bring practical help and Christian teaching to people struggling with poverty and hardship. Inspired by military organization, Booth introduced ranks such as officers and recruits, believing discipline and structure would strengthen the movement. Women were given leadership roles alongside men, an uncommon practice for the time.

The Christian Mission quickly expanded its work into some of London's poorest communities, opening soup kitchens and offering both physical assistance and spiritual support. Its energetic public preaching and unusual methods were not welcomed by everyone, and members frequently faced hostility, fines, and even imprisonment as authorities attempted to curb their activities.

In 1878, the organization adopted the name the The Salvation Army, and two years later established its first branch in the United States. During the Great Depression and both World Wars, the organization became widely respected for providing food, shelter, and support to civilians and military personnel alike. Today, the Salvation Army operates in more than 130 countries, delivering disaster relief, rehabilitation programs, community services, hospitals, thrift stores, and other charitable initiatives, supported through donations and the proceeds of its retail operations.

On September 24, 1948, Soichiro Honda established the Honda Motor Company in Hamamatsu, Japan, beginning a business that would grow from modest motorcycle production into one of the world's best-known manufacturers. Honda's early postwar experiments were hardly a straight road to success. After taking over a damaged former factory in 1946, he explored ideas ranging from weaving machinery and glass production to bamboo roofing before discovering a supply of surplus two-stroke engines. With transportation desperately needed in postwar Japan, Honda attached the little engines to bicycles and found an eager market. When the surplus motors ran out, he began producing his own, leading to the A-Type motorized bicycle in 1947 and, after incorporation, the more advanced D-Type motorcycle in 1949.

Motorcycles soon transformed Honda from a small Japanese manufacturer into an international company. The Super Cub, introduced in 1958, became particularly important, combining simplicity, reliability and economical operation in a machine designed to appeal well beyond traditional motorcycle enthusiasts. Honda entered the American market in 1959, and during the following decade its motorcycles became familiar around the world. The company also began manufacturing automobiles in the 1960s, but its major automotive breakthrough came with the Civic, introduced in the early 1970s. Its fuel-efficient CVCC engine was capable of meeting stringent U.S. emissions requirements without a catalytic converter, making the Civic particularly attractive during an era of rising fuel prices. The larger Accord followed in 1976 and became another major success, eventually becoming one of America's best-selling automobiles.

Honda remained closely associated with the company as it expanded from improvised motorized bicycles to motorcycles, automobiles and international motorsport. Known as an engineer and enthusiastic racer as much as a businessman, he encouraged experimentation and technological development rather than simply copying established manufacturers. Soichiro Honda was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1989 and died in 1991, leaving behind a company whose origins could scarcely have been more humble: a battered factory, some discarded engines and one mechanically minded dreamer determined to find something useful to build.

On September 24, 1968, CBS introduced American viewers to 60 Minutes, an experimental news program created by producer Don Hewitt and originally presented by Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner. Hewitt conceived the program as a television equivalent of a magazine, combining several shorter reports within a single broadcast rather than devoting an entire hour to one documentary subject. The premiere included material from the 1968 presidential campaign as well as interviews, commentary and other features, establishing the mixture of serious reporting and lighter material that would become the program's trademark. Initially broadcast every other Tuesday, 60 Minutes later moved through several time slots before settling into its familiar Sunday evening home in 1975.

As the program developed, investigative reporting and lengthy interviews became central to its identity. Its journalists examined subjects ranging from Watergate and the Vietnam War to corporate misconduct, government controversies and international affairs. The program also introduced recurring features such as “Point/Counterpoint,” which began in 1971 and presented opposing political viewpoints. Over the decades its roster of correspondents has included Wallace, Reasoner, Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Ed Bradley, Diane Sawyer, Steve Kroft, Lesley Stahl and others. Its distinctive ticking stopwatch eventually became one of the most recognizable opening images in American television—although, surprisingly, it was absent from that first broadcast.

What began as an uncertain experiment became one of television's most enduring institutions. 60 Minutes eventually reached the top of the Nielsen ratings and accumulated numerous honors for its journalism; the Peabody Awards gave the program an Institutional Award in 2017 after it had already received more than 20 Peabodys for individual work. More than half a century after Wallace and Reasoner introduced viewers to what they called a magazine for television, 60 Minutes remains on the CBS schedule and holds the distinction of being the longest continuously running program in American network prime time.

On September 24, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened to the public on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., bringing to completion an effort whose roots stretched back more than a century. Calls for a national institution recognizing African American history and achievement can be traced to 1915, and a presidential commission was established in 1929, but the project repeatedly stalled. Decades later, Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis became one of its most persistent congressional advocates. Congress finally authorized the Smithsonian museum in 2003, with President George W. Bush signing the legislation that December. A site near the Washington Monument was selected in 2006, construction began after a 2012 groundbreaking, and the distinctive 400,000-square-foot building was designed by the Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup team. Its exterior “Corona,” consisting of thousands of bronze-colored cast-aluminum panels, gives the museum an appearance unlike anything else along the Mall.

The dedication brought together thousands of spectators along with President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, Congressman Lewis, Chief Justice John Roberts, Smithsonian officials and other guests. Following Obama's remarks, the museum was officially opened by ringing the Freedom Bell, a 500-pound bell from the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the country's oldest African American Baptist congregations. Obama and the First Lady were joined at the bell by four generations of the Bonner family, including Ruth Bonner, whose father had been born into slavery. Bells then sounded elsewhere across Washington to mark the occasion.

When its doors opened that afternoon, visitors entered a museum devoted exclusively to documenting African American life, history and culture, with exhibitions exploring slavery and freedom, segregation and the civil rights movement, military service, sports, music, visual arts and contemporary American life. The Smithsonian had started the project in 2003 without a building, a site or even an artifact collection; by opening day, more than 3,000 objects were on display and tens of thousands more had been collected. Public response was immediate: by the museum's first anniversary, nearly three million people had visited. What had spent generations existing largely as an idea had finally become a permanent part of the Smithsonian—and of the National Mall itself.

On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States approved 12 proposed amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. The proposals were intended to address concerns that the new Constitution did not sufficiently protect individual liberties or restrict the power of the federal government. Ten of the amendments would eventually become known collectively as the Bill of Rights, protecting such fundamental freedoms as speech, religion, the press and peaceful assembly, while also establishing important protections involving criminal proceedings, the right to bear arms and powers reserved to the states or the people.

The amendments reflected ideas with deep roots in earlier declarations of individual rights, including the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and Virginia's Declaration of Rights, written principally by George Mason in 1776. Mason later attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787 but refused to sign the completed Constitution, in part because it contained no declaration specifically protecting individual freedoms. Similar objections emerged during the state ratification debates, and supporters of the Constitution agreed that amendments addressing those concerns would be considered once the new federal government began operating. James Madison subsequently introduced a series of proposed amendments in Congress, from which the final 12 were developed.

Virginia ratified 10 of the proposed amendments on December 15, 1791, becoming the 11th of the 14 states and providing the three-fourths majority required to add them to the Constitution. Those 10 amendments became the Bill of Rights. One of the two remaining proposals, concerning the size and apportionment of the House of Representatives, was never ratified. The other sought to prevent changes in congressional compensation from taking effect until after an intervening election. Remarkably, that proposal remained technically alive for more than two centuries before receiving enough state approvals in 1992 to become the 27th Amendment.

On September 25, 1970, ABC introduced American television audiences to The Partridge Family, placing the new musical sitcom immediately after The Brady Bunch on Friday evenings. The series came from Screen Gems, the production company that had already demonstrated the commercial possibilities of combining television and pop music with The Monkees. This time, the basic concept drew inspiration from the Cowsills, the real-life family singing group. The Cowsills themselves were considered for the project, but the arrangement fell apart when the producers wanted actress Shirley Jones rather than the family's own mother, Barbara Cowsill, to head the fictional group. Screen Gems instead assembled its own television family, casting Jones as widowed mother Shirley Partridge, David Cassidy as Keith and Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce, Jeremy Gelbwaks and Suzanne Crough as the Partridge children.

The show's opening episode established a formula that neatly connected the television story with an actual recording business. The Partridge children persuade their mother to join their musical group, and their recording of "I Think I Love You" becomes a hit. Reality quickly followed the script: released as an actual single featuring Cassidy and Jones, "I Think I Love You" climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1970. Cassidy, who was Shirley Jones' stepson in real life, rapidly became a major teen idol as the television series generated records, merchandise, fan magazines and packed concert appearances.

Despite what viewers saw each week, the records were not created by the fictional family gathered around microphones in the Partridge garage. Much of the instrumental work was performed by accomplished Los Angeles session musicians, including members of the celebrated group of studio players commonly known as the Wrecking Crew, with Cassidy developing into the principal singing voice associated with the act alongside Jones. Songs including "I Woke Up in Love This Morning" extended the television family's recording success, while Cassidy established a separate career as a recording and concert performer. The illusion of the friendly musical family became remarkably convincing to some young viewers: Shirley Jones later recalled children turning up at her home hoping that the woman they knew as Mrs. Partridge might take them in. Television had apparently done its job a little too well.

On September 25, 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 collided in midair with a Cessna 172 over San Diego, California, causing one of the deadliest aviation disasters in U.S. history at the time. The Boeing 727 was approaching San Diego's Lindbergh Field after a flight from Sacramento with a stop in Los Angeles, carrying 128 passengers and seven crew members. Meanwhile, the Cessna, occupied by student pilot David Lee Boswell and instructor Martin Kazy, had been conducting instrument-landing practice before departing the Lindbergh Field area for Montgomery Field.

The crew of Flight 182 had been advised of the Cessna's presence and initially reported seeing the smaller aircraft. As the 727 continued its approach, however, its pilots lost visual contact with the Cessna while air traffic controllers continued under the impression that the PSA crew was maintaining separation visually. At approximately 9 a.m., the descending Boeing 727 overtook and struck the Cessna. The collision severely damaged the jet's right wing and ruptured its fuel system, sending the aircraft toward the residential North Park neighborhood below. The Cessna, also critically damaged, fell nearby.

Flight 182 crashed into the neighborhood and exploded, destroying or damaging numerous homes and starting several fires. Everyone aboard both aircraft—135 people on the Boeing 727 and the two men in the Cessna—was killed, along with seven people on the ground, bringing the death toll to 144. The subsequent National Transportation Safety Board investigation examined failures involving visual separation, communication and air traffic procedures, and the catastrophe contributed to significant changes in aviation safety. Among the developments that followed were tighter rules governing aircraft operations around busy airports and, in the years ahead, greater use of technology designed to warn pilots when another aircraft poses a collision threat.