Chief justice of the Supreme Court was John Jay of New York, who was appointed by President George Washington on September 24, 1789. He was confirmed by the Senate on September 26, 1789, and took the oath of office on October 19. His most important opinion was written for Glass v. The Sloop Betsy, decided on February 18, 1794, in which the justices ruled unanimously that foreign powers do not have the right to establish courts in the United States. The case involved a Swedish merchant vessel that was captured as a prize by a French warship and taken into Baltimore for adjudication by the French consul.

Supreme Court justice who had served in the executive branch was John Jay of New York, the first chief justice, who had served as secretary for foreign affairs from 1784 to 1789, when the nation was still operating under the Articles of Confederation. The first justice to have served in the executive branch under the Constitution was Chief Justice John Marshall (1801–35), who had been sent to France as a special envoy by President John Adams in 1797.

Supreme Court justices born outside the United States were James Wilson, born in 1742 in Caskardy, Fifeshire, Scotland, and James Iredell, born in 1751 in Lewes, England. Both were members of the original Supreme Court that convened in 1790. They were joined in 1793 by William Paterson, who was born in County Antrim, Ireland, in 1745.

Supreme Court nominee to die before taking office was Robert Hanson Harrison, the former chief judge of the General Court of Maryland, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by President George Washington on September 24, 1789, along with the five other members of the first Supreme Court, and was confirmed by the Senate on September 26. Harrison, who was infirm, declined to serve but was persuaded by the president to change his mind. On his way to New York City to take his seat, he became seriously ill, and he died soon thereafter. His place was taken by James Iredell of North Carolina. The next Supreme Court nominee to die before taking office was Edwin McMasters Stanton, who was appointed by President Ulysses Simpson Grant on December 20, 1869, and confirmed the same day by a vote of 46 to 11, but who died four days later.

Supreme Court justice to resign was John Rutledge of South Carolina, who was appointed to the Court by President George Washington. He took the oath of office on February 15, 1790, but he did not attend a single session of the Supreme Court, probably because he was disappointed in not having been named chief justice. He did, however, perform the circuit-riding duties of a Supreme Court justice, riding the Southern Circuit. He resigned on March 15, 1791, to become chief justice of the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas. On July 1, 1795, President Washington nominated him to replace John Jay as the chief justice of the Supreme Court, making him the first Supreme Court justice to be renominated after resignation.

Nominee for associate justice of the Supreme Court to be rejected by the Senate was William Paterson of New Jersey, who was nominated on February 20, 1793, by President George Washington. His name was sent to the Senate for approval on February 27, but he was rejected on a technicality (he had been serving as senator from New Jersey when the office of associate justice was created). On March 4, 1793, after Paterson’s Senate term had expired, Washington renominated him under a recess appointment. He was confirmed and served from March 14, 1793, to September 9, 1806.

Supreme Court justice who had been a state governor was William Paterson of New Jersey, who succeeded William Livingston as governor in 1790, serving simultaneously as state chancellor. He took office as associate justice on March 11, 1793.

Supreme Court justice who had served in the Senate was William Paterson of New Jersey, who was a U.S. Senator from 1789 to 1790. He took office as associate justice on March 11, 1793.

Supreme Court chief justice to resign was John Jay, the Court’s first chief justice, who took the oath of office in October 1789. In 1794, while still on the Court, he was sent to London by President George Washington to negotiate a treaty of commerce. He returned the following year to find that in his absence he had been elected governor of New York. He resigned on June 29, 1795, and went on to serve two three-year terms as governor. President John Adams renominated him to be chief justice in 1800, after the resignation of Oliver Ellsworth, but Jay declined, though he had already been confirmed by the Senate.

Nominee for chief justice of the Supreme Court to be rejected by the Senate was former associate justice John Rutledge of South Carolina. Rutledge, a Federalist, had been named one of the original associate justices of the Supreme Court in 1789, though he had refused to attend its sessions and had resigned in 1791 to head his state’s Court of Common Pleas. President George Washington nominated him in July 1795, during the adjournment of Congress, to succeed John Jay as chief justice. He was sworn in on August 12, 1795, and presided over the Court’s August session in Philadelphia, PA. However, his vehement opposition to the Jay Treaty cost him support in Congress, and on December 15, 1795, the Senate refused to confirm him by a vote of 14 to 10.

Associate Supreme Court justice to refuse elevation to the post of chief justice was William Cushing of Massachusetts, associate justice of the Supreme Court since February 1790. The vacancy left by the resignation of Chief Justice John Jay on June 29, 1795, was initially filled by former associate justice John Rutledge, but Rutledge failed to win confirmation from the Senate. Cushing was nominated by President George Washington on January 26, 1796, and was confirmed by the Senate on the following day, but declined the appointment. Jay was replaced on March 8 by Oliver Ellsworth.

Chief justice of the Supreme Court to administer the oath of office to a president was Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, chief justice from March 8, 1796, through December 15, 1800. On March 4, 1797, he administered the oath of office to John Adams in Philadelphia, PA. At the two previous inaugurations—those of George Washington—the oath was administered by Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of New York State (1789), and William Cushing, associate justice of the Supreme Court (1793).

Supreme Court justice who had served in the House of Representatives was John Marshall of Virginia, chief justice from Febuary 4, 1801, to July 6, 1835, who had served in the House of Representatives from March 4, 1799, to June 7, 1800. The first associate justice with experience in the House of Representatives was Gabriel Duvall of Maryland, a member of the Court from February 3, 1812, to January 15, 1835, who had served in the House of Representatives from November 11, 1794, to March 28, 1796.

Former chief justice of the Supreme Court to refuse renomination was John Jay, who served as the Court’s first chief justice from October 19, 1789, until June 29, 1795, when he resigned. His replacement was Oliver Ellsworth, who himself resigned in September 1800. Jay, who was then serving his second term as governor of New York, was nominated by President John Adams on December 18 and was confirmed by the Senate next day. However, Jay, who had not been consulted regarding his renomination, declined to accept on the ground that the Court was too weak an institution. Ellsworth was replaced on February 4, 1801, by John Marshall.

Supreme Court justice who had served in a presidential cabinet was John Marshall, secretary of state in 1800–01 under President John Adams, who appointed him chief justice on January 20, 1801.

Supreme Court chief justice who had served in a presidential cabinet was John Marshall of Virginia, who was chief justice from February 4, 1801, to July 6, 1835. For the first month, until March 4, 1801, he continued to serve as President John Adams’s secretary of state, the job he had held since June 1800.

Chief justice of the Supreme Court to administer the oath of office to more than one president was John Marshall, chief justice from February 4, 1801, to July 6, 1835, when he died. He gave the oath of office to Thomas Jefferson on March 4, 1801, and March 4, 1805; to James Madison on March 4, 1809, and March 4, 1813; to James Monroe on March 4, 1817, and March 5, 1821; to John Quincy Adams on March 4, 1825; and to Andrew Jackson on March 4, 1829, and March 4, 1833.

Supreme Court justice to be impeached was Samuel Chase, against whom charges were brought on March 12, 1804, by the House of Representatives. The accusation consisted of eight articles, of which the majority had to do with high-handed conduct displayed by Chase in two treason and sedition trials. There were also political reasons for the impeachment, which was encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson. The trial began on January 30, 1805. Chase was acquitted and served until his death on June 19, 1811, at the age of 70.

Supreme Court justice who had served as a federal judge was Robert Trimble, who sat as judge of the United States District Court for the District of Kentucky from 1817 to 1826, when he was appointed as associate justice of the Supreme Court. He took office on June 16, 1828.

Chief Justice to wear long pants at his inauguration was Roger Brooke Taney, who took the oath of office on March 28, 1836, wearing trousers rather than knee breeches.

Supreme Court chief justice who was Catholic was Roger Brooke Taney of Frederick, MD, who was appointed by President Andrew Jackson to succeed John Marshall. He served from March 28, 1836, until his death on October 12, 1864.

Supreme Court justice who had served as attorney general was Roger Brooke Taney, attorney general from 1831 to 1833 under President Andrew Jackson. He replaced John Marshall as chief justice on March 28, 1836.

Supreme Court justice with a university law degree was Benjamin Robbins Curtis, appointed by President Millard Fillmore in 1851. Curtis was a native of Watertown, MA, who received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1829 and his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1832. Two previous justices, John Rutledge and John Blair, both members of the first Court of 1790, had received their legal education in London, at the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court. Most aspiring lawyers in the early decades of the United States studied privately under a practicing lawyer.

Supreme Court justice with no judicial or political experience was George Shiras, Jr., a lawyer who practiced in Dubuque, IA, and Pittsburgh, PA, from 1855 until October 10, 1892, when he took the oath of office as associate justice. He had been offered a Senate nomination by the Pennsylvania state legislature in 1881 but turned it down. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Benjamin Harrison and was confirmed despite the objections of his state’s U.S. senators, who considered him too independent.

Supreme Court justice to be appointed and confirmed as chief justice was Edward Douglass White, who was appointed associate justice on March 12, 1894, and chief justice on December 12, 1910. He took his seat on December 19 and served until May 2, 1921, a week before his death. John Rutledge was appointed chief justice in 1795 after having served 13 months as associate justice (1790–91), but the Senate refused to confirm him.

Supreme Court justice who was Jewish was Louis Dembitz Brandeis of Boston, MA, who was appointed on January 28, 1916, by President Woodrow Wilson. The nomination was confirmed by the Senate on June 1, 1916, and Brandeis was sworn in on June 3. He served until 1939.

Chief justice of the Supreme Court who had served as president of the United States was William Howard Taft, who was appointed chief justice by President Warren Gamaliel Harding. His appointment was immediately confirmed by the Senate, and he took the oath of office on June 30, 1921. He had entered the White House on March 4, 1909, and left it on March 3, 1913, after losing a bid for reelection. Between the end of his presidency and the beginning of his term on the Court, he taught law at Yale University.

Supreme Court nominee to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee with regard to his confirmation was Harlan Fiske Stone of New York. Stone, the United States attorney general, was nominated as associate justice by President Calvin Coolidge on January 5, 1925. At his own initiative, Stone appeared in person before the Judiciary Committee to answer allegations about his personal and political ties to big business. His appointment was confirmed on February 5, 1925, by a vote of 61 to 6. The appearance of Supreme Court nominees before the Judiciary Committee did not become a standard part of the confirmation process until the mid-1950s.

Supreme Court justice to be appointed, confirmed, and inaugurated twice was Charles Evans Hughes of New York, who was the governor of New York in 1910 when he was appointed an associate justice of the Supreme Court by President William Howard Taft. He resigned from the Court in 1916 to run for president on the Republican ticket, but was defeated by the incumbent president, Woodrow Wilson. After serving as secretary of state under Presidents Warren Gamaliel Harding and Calvin Coolidge, Hughes was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court on February 13, 1930, by President Herbert Hoover. He retired in 1941. John Jay, the first chief justice (1790–95), was reappointed and reconfirmed in 1800, but declined to serve; John Rutledge, associate justice in 1790–91, was reappointed as chief justice in 1795, but was not confirmed.

Supreme Court nominee to be rejected by the Senate in the 20th century was John J. Parker of North Carolina, chief judge of the Fourth Circuit Court, who was nominated by Herbert Clark Hoover. On May 7, 1930, the Senate narrowly rejected his nomination after his judicial record was criticized as unfair by the American Federation of Labor and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Woman to clerk for a Supreme Court justice was Lucille Loman, who was hired by Justice William O. Douglas in 1944. She also served as his personal assistant. No other woman was employed as a clerk until 1966, when Justice Harry Blackmun hired Margaret Corcoran.

Year in which all the justices of the Supreme Court were graduates of a law school was 1957, four years into the tenure of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Warren received his J.D. degree from the University of California in 1914. The associate justices that year were Hugo Lafayette Black (University of Alabama Law School, 1906), Felix Frankfurter (Harvard Law School, 1906), Harold Hitz Burton (Harvard Law School, 1912), Tom Campbell Clark (University of Texas, 1922), Charles Evans Whittaker (University of Kansas City Law School, 1924), William Orville Douglas (Columbia University Law School, 1925), John Marshall Harlan (New York Law School, 1925), and William Joseph Brennan (Harvard Law School, 1931).

Supreme Court justice who was African-American was Thurgood Marshall of Maryland, appointed on June 13, 1967, by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 69–11 on August 30, 1967, and sworn in on September 1 in a private ceremony. He was publicly sworn in at the opening ceremony of the new term on October 2, 1967. He was the 96th justice.

Supreme Court justice to participate in a television program was Hugo LaFayette Black, who was interviewed in his home at Alexandria, VA, on December 3, 1968, for CBS News by Eric Sevareid and Martin Agronsky.

Woman to become a Supreme Court justice was Sandra Day O’Connor of Arizona, nominated as an associate justice by President Ronald Reagan on July 7, 1981. The Senate approved her appointment by a vote of 99–0 on September 21. O’Connor took her seat on September 25 after taking the oath of office administered by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.

Supreme Court nominee accused of sexual harassment was Clarence Thomas, the 106th justice. After Thomas’s nomination in 1991, media sources leaked charges of sexual harassment that had been made against him by University of Oklahoma law professor Anita F. Hill, who a decade earlier had worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and the Equal Opportunity Commission. The charges were publicly read by Hill on October 11, 1991, before televised Senate Judiciary Committee hearings watched by some 30 million American households. Thomas vigorously denied Hill’s accusations; convincing evidence was not produced to corroborate either side’s account. After an unprecedented 107 days of hearings, Thomas was confirmed on October 15, 1991, by a Senate vote of 52 to 48, the closest in a century. The hearings sparked a national debate about sexism and sexual harassment in American society.

Jewish woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice was Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia, nominated by President William Jefferson Clinton on June 14, 1993. She filled the seat vacated by Justice Byron White. She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the first Jewish justice since the resignation of Abe Fortas in 1969.

Woman to preside over the Supreme Court was associate justice Sandra Day O’Connor of Arizona. On April 3, 1995, she sat in for the chief justice, William H. Rehnquist, when he was out of town.

Supreme Court with a majority of Catholic justices was the Roberts Court of 2006. When Samuel A. Alito was sworn in on January 31, 2006, he became the fifth Catholic jurist on the nine-member panel, together with Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts.

Hispanic and third female member of the Supreme Court was Sonia Sotomayor on Saturday, August 8, 2009. She was appointed as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama. Sotomayor had previously been appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by President Bill Clinton. Markedly, on March 30, 1995, in the case of Silverman v. Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee, Inc., Sotomayor issued a preliminary injunction against Major League Baseball, preventing it from unilaterally implementing a new collective bargaining agreement and using replacement players. Her ruling ended the 1994 baseball strike after 232 days, the day before the new season was scheduled to begin.