1789 - North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1877 - Inventor Thomas A. Edison unveiled the phonograph.

1922 - Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

1969 - The Senate voted down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth, the first such rejection since 1930.

1973 - President Richard Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18 1/2-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.

1980 - A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas killed 87 people.

1989 - The proceedings of Britain's House of Commons were televised live for the first time.

1995 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 5,000 for the first time.

2002 - NATO sought to expand its membership into the borders of the former Soviet Union as it invited seven former communist countries to join the alliance: Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria.