On February 2

On this day in ...
... 1790 (220 years ago today), in the chamber at left tucked inside the Senate wing of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Supreme Court convened for the 1st time. (photo credit) On the bench were 1 Chief Justice of the United States, John Jay, and 5 Associate Justices of the Court. This website gives an apt summary of this moment in U.S. history:

At its creation, the judicial branch was by far the weakest and most timid of all three government branches, holding back from strongly upholding and deciding controversial issues.

The story of how all that began to change with the arrival in 1801 of Chief Justice John Marshall has been told often -- most recently by our colleagues Cliff Sloan and David McKean, in The Great Decision (2009) (prior posts here and here).

(Prior February 2 posts are here and here.)

On November 19, ...

... 1977 (30 years ago today), Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the 1st Arab leader ever to visit Israel. Sadat was greeted at Ben Gurion

Airport outside Tel Aviv by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, with whom he would share the Nobel Peace Prize a year later. Also planned during the 36-hour visit was a televised speech before the Knesset, to be delivered in Arabic, 1 of the official languages of the Israeli parliament.

... 1794, Jay's Treaty, an instrument formally titled the Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannick Majesty; and The United States of America, was signed in London. Its U.S. nickname recognizes its U.S. negotiator, John Jay, a special envoy who also wrote some of the Federalist papers and served as the 1st Chief Justice of the United States. Although the instrument averted a looming commercial war between the 2 countries, it was controversial. Protesters hanged Jay in effigy. Nonetheless, the treaty received the Senate's advice and consent in 1795.

On October 27, ...

... 1787 (220 years ago today), a commentary addressed "To the People of the State of New York" and carrying the pseudonymous signature "Publius" appeared in New York's Independent Journal. In fact written by Alexander Hamilton, this dispatch in favor of the draft Constitution then pending before the 13 America states was the 1st Federalist paper. Eventually 85 such dispatches would be written, by Hamilton, who'd become the new country's 1st Treasury Secretary, and 2 colleagues, John Jay, 1st Chief Justice of the United States, and James Madison, the 4th U.S. President. The Federalist remains to this day a source for intepretation of the U.S. Constitution and understanding of constitutionalism.
... 1973, the adoption of Security Council Resolution 341 implemented a prior resolution authorizing establishment of a 2d U.N. Emergency Force of peacekeepers "to supervise the ceasefire between Egyptian and Israeli forces and, following the conclusion of the agreements of 18 January 1974 and 4 September 1975, to supervise the redeployment of Egyptian and Israeli forces and to man and control the buffer zones established under those agreements."