1608: English adventurer John Smith was elected council president of Jamestown, Va. — the first permanent English settlement in North America.
1858: George Mary Searle discovered the asteroid 55 Pandora. Searle was a professor at the Catholic University of America.
1942: President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandated gasoline rationing in the U.S. as part of the country’s wartime efforts.
1953: Swanson sells its first “TV dinner.”
1963: 20 black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between federal authorities and Gov. George C. Wallace.
1984: The Federal Communications Commission changed a rule to allow broadcasters to own 12 AM and 12 FM radio stations. The previous limit was seven of each.
1991: A Senate committee begins hearings on Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court nomination.
1992: Lucy in the “Peanuts” comic strip raises her Psychiatric Help from 5 cents to 47 cents. The Washington Post was one of the seven newspapers in which Peanuts was premiered on Oct. 2, 1950.
2002: The September 11: Bearing Witness to History exhibit opened at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
