Today in History, September 29th
On September 29, 1982, the Tylenol poisonings began in the Chicago area, leading to tamper-proof packaging. Plus the founding of London's police.
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September 29 is best known for 1982, when the first deaths in the Chicago-area Tylenol poisonings led to a nationwide recall and new standards for medicine packaging. The date also saw London’s Metropolitan Police founded in 1829 and John Roberts sworn in as chief justice in 2005.
The big story: The Tylenol poisonings begin (1982)
On September 29, 1982, three people in the Chicago area died suddenly after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. Within days the toll reached seven. Two firefighters, Richard Keyworth and Philip Cappitelli, noticed the common thread: every victim had taken the same painkiller. Investigators then found that someone had laced capsules in several bottles with cyanide. Bottles were pulled from shelves across the country, even though the tainted capsules turned up only around Chicago. Letters demanding $1 million to stop the killings surfaced, and investigators identified a possible culprit, but there was not enough evidence to convict anyone, and the case went unsolved. Copycat threats followed, most of them hoaxes. The lasting change sits in nearly every medicine cabinet. The poisonings led to new tamper-proof medicine containers, the seals that shoppers take for granted and occasionally struggle to open.
More events on September 29
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 642 | Arab commander ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ entered Alexandria as the city surrendered peacefully, completing the Arab conquest of Egypt. |
| 1780 | British spy John André was sentenced to death for his part in Benedict Arnold’s plot. |
| 1829 | London’s Metropolitan Police, England’s first professional police force, was founded through the efforts of Robert Peel. |
| 1911 | Italy declared war on Turkey, starting the Italo-Turkish War over what is now Libya. |
| 1913 | Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, vanished from the steamship Dresden. |
| 1916 | Newspapers reported that John D. Rockefeller had become the world’s first billionaire, though the figure was an estimate. |
| 1918 | Allied forces broke through the Hindenburg Line, Germany’s last line of defense on the Western Front. |
| 1923 | The British mandate for Palestine, approved by the League of Nations Council, came into force. |
| 1954 | Willie Mays made his famous over-the-shoulder grab, known simply as “The Catch,” in the World Series. |
| 1988 | Space shuttle Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral, returning NASA’s shuttle program to flight after the Challenger disaster. |
| 2005 | John G. Roberts Jr. was sworn in as the 17th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. |
| 2008 | The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777.68 points, its biggest one-day point drop up to then, after Congress failed to pass a $700 billion bank bailout plan. |
Born on September 29
- 1901: Enrico Fermi, physicist, 1938 Nobel laureate and director of the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, born in Rome.
- 1907: Gene Autry, the singing cowboy of films and records, born near Tioga, Texas.
- 1961: Julia Gillard, the first woman to serve as prime minister of Australia, born in Barry, Wales.
Sources
- Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills seven, History.com
- This Day in History: September 29, History.com
- On This Day: September 29, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Enrico Fermi, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Gene Autry, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Julia Gillard, Encyclopaedia Britannica
