On September 2, 1969, America’s first automatic teller machine
(ATM) made its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at
Chemical Bank in Rockville Centre, New York. ATMs went on
to revolutionize the banking industry, eliminating the need to
visit a bank to conduct basic financial transactions.

By the 1980s, these money machines had become widely
popular and handled many of the functions previously
performed by human tellers, such as check deposits and
money transfers between accounts. Today, ATMs are as
indispensable to most people as cell phones and e-mail.

Sir Thomas Bland (center) unveiled the first ATM by
drawing back a curtain, and actor Reg Varney (center) 
made the first cash withdrawal.

Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally
surrendered to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II.

By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone
conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed.

At the end of June, the Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese
island from which the Allies could launch an invasion of the main Japanese home islands. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur was
put in charge of the invasion, which was code-named “Operation Olympic” and set for November 1945.

General Douglas MacArthur speaks to open the surrender ceremonies on the USS Missouri.

General Douglas MacArthur signs the surrender documents. Behind him stand General Jonathan M. Wainwright and
General Arthur E. Percival.

Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated
on the first Monday of September to honor and recognize the
American labor movement and the works and contributions of
laborers to the development and achievements in the United
States.

Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labor movements grew, trade unionists proposed that a day be set
aside to celebrate labor. "Labor Day" was promoted by the
Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, which organized
the first parade in New York City. In 1887, Oregon was the first
state of the United States to make it an official public holiday.

By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty
states in the U.S. officially celebrated Labor Day.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Seventy-three years after it sank to the North Atlantic ocean
floor, a joint U.S.-French expedition locates the wreck of the
RMS Titanic. The sunken liner was about 400 miles east of
Newfoundland in the North Atlantic, some 13,000 feet below
the surface.

Efforts to locate and salvage the Titanic began almost
immediately after it sank. But technical limitations—as
well as the sheer vastness of the North Atlantic search
area—made it extremely difficult.

American oceanographer and former Navy officer Robert D.
Ballard, who was based out of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Massachusetts, led his first search expedition
in 1977, which was unsuccessful.

Ballard also discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy‘s
PT-109 in 2002.

Robert Duane Ballard (82)