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Oct. 11 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1811, the first steam-powered ferry in the world, the Juliana, started its run between New York City and Hoboken, N.J.

In 1868, Thomas Alva Edison filed papers for his first invention: an electrical vote recorder to rapidly tabulate floor votes in the U.S. Congress. Edison’s device was issued U.S. Patent 90,646 on June 1, 1869. Members of Congress rejected the apparatus and it was never utilized.

In 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education banned Japanese-American students from attending public schools, ordering that instead they were to be taught in racially segregated schools. A compromise was reached in February 1907, allowing the students back into the schools with the Japanese government accepting new immigration restrictions for its citizens wishing to travel to the United States.

In 1910, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take flight in an airplane. Piloted by Arch Hoxsey, Roosevelt would stay aloft for 4 minutes in a Wright brothers-built plane at Kinloch Field in St. Louis, Mo.

In 1947, the United States agreed to the United Nations Partition Plan of Palestine, which recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States with the city of Jerusalem placed under direct trusteeship of the United Nations. The resolution was adopted by the General Assembly on Nov. 29, 1947, though a civil war, which would last nearly six months, erupted the next day between Arabs and Jews, resulting in the partition plan failing to be implemented.

File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI

In 1950, the Federal Communications Commission gave CBS the first license to broadcast color television.

In 1975, Saturday Night Live premiered on NBC with George Carlin as host and musicians Janis Ian and Billy Preston on the bill.

In 1984, Kathryn Sullivan, flying into orbit aboard the space shuttle Challenger, became the first American woman to walk in space.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss arms control and human rights. While the talks collapsed at the last minute, work would continue, resulting in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the two nations.

In 2000, Congress designated Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area as a national park, making it the first national recreation area to receive the upgrade in the United States.

In 2002, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

In 2002, Congress gave U.S. President George W. Bush its backing for using military force against Iraq.

Surrounded by members of Congress, President George W. Bush signs the congressional resolution authorizing U.S. use of force against Iraq if needed, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on October 16, 2002. File Photo by Chris Corder/UPI

In 2008, the U.S. State Department removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. In return, North Korea agreed to give international inspectors access to its nuclear facilities and to continue disabling its plutonium processing project.

In 2013, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize. The United Nations-backed OPCW, which has headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, was overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile at the time it won the prize.

In 2024, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, an organization made up of atomic bomb survivors in Japan for their actions opposing the use of nuclear weapons.

File Photo by Paul Treadway/UPI

Sept. 22 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1776, the British hanged American Revolutionary War hero and patriot Nathan Hale. His famous last words were, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing some 3 million slaves.

In 1888, National Geographic began publishing.

In 1927, Jack Dempsey muffed a chance to regain the heavyweight championship when he knocked down Gene Tunney but failed to go to a neutral corner promptly, thereby delaying the referee’s count and giving the champ time to get up.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed a law giving the Peace Corps permanent status. He hailed it as a way for Americans to work for world peace and understanding.

In 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford escaped a second assassination attempt in 17 days, this one by self-proclaimed revolutionary Sara Jane Moore, who tried to shoot him as he walked from a San Francisco hotel. Her shot, deflected by ex-Marine Oliver Sipple, a bystander who grabbed her arm, slightly wounded a man in the crowd. Moore served 32 years of a life prison sentence. She was released in 2007 at the age of 77. Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, convicted in a Sept. 5, 1975, assassination attempt in Sacramento, was paroled in 2009, at age 60, after 34 years in prison.

File Photo courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library

In 1980, long-standing border disputes and political turmoil in Iran prompted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to launch an invasion of Iran’s oil-producing province of Khuzestan, touching off an eight-year war.

In 1985, more than 50 rock and country stars, headed by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp, staged the 14-hour Farm Aid concert for 78,000 rain-soaked spectators in Champaign, Ill., raising $10 million for debt-ridden U.S. farmers.

File Photo by Armand Engelbrecht/UPI

In 1994, Friends, starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, premiered on NBC. The comedy series ran for 10 season, each of which was ranked in the Top 10 of the final TV season ratings.

In 2008, officials at China’s health ministry said nearly 53,000 children, most of them younger than 2 years old, had been sickened by milk powder tainted with an industrial chemical. At least four children died. Ten Asian and African nations, including Japan, temporarily banned Chinese dairy products.

In 2010, a Miami appeals court affirmed the adoption of two foster children by a gay couple, ruling Florida’s ban on same-sex adoption was unconstitutional.

In 2017, the U.S. Marine Corps announced that for the first time in its 250-year history, a woman will be joining its ranks as an infantry officer.

In 2019, Billy Porter became the first openly gay man to win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama in a Series for Pose.

In 2020, the United States reported a milestone 200,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.

File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI

“7 a.m.,” the pilot episode of “The Pitt,” introduces viewers to the organized chaos of a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room and the doctors and nurses who spend their days going from medical crisis to medical crisis.

“At the center of that wheel with all the spokes” is Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, says Noah Wyle, who plays the caring and beleaguered chief attending physician. “You can identify who is who in the show by how Robby is treating them. Am I being deferential to their expertise and education, or do I assume that they don’t know s— and I have to babysit them?”

The episode, written by series creator and executive producer R. Scott Gemmill and directed by executive producer John Wells, also hints at story arcs that will play out over the 15-episode first season. “There’s all kinds of little Easter eggs in there if you go back and look,” Gemmill says.

The Envelope chatted with Wyle, who also serves as an executive producer on the series, Wells and Gemmill about how the Emmy-nominated “7 a.m.” establishes “The Pitt’s” core characters.

Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle)
“This is an emergency department. Not a Taco Bell.”

The series begins with Robby walking to work listening to “Baby” by Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise. “One of the things that you’re always trying to do is just tell the audience who you’re going to follow,” Wells says. “Who’s going to be your character that introduces you to this world?”

Robby is the only character viewers see arriving to work. “We really wanted our characters to be learned about through the exposition of their workplace environment,” Wyle says.

“It was a conscious and thoughtful decision to not wake up in his apartment, not get a sense of his home decor, what his diet is, who he sleeps with,” he adds. “Those were all defining things that would immediately take him from being an everyman to being a specific man.”

Nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa)
“You sure you’re cool being here today?”

The first person Robby checks in with is Dana, the charge nurse, who Gemmill refers to as both the “den mother” and “air traffic controller” of the ER. “Robby’s relationship with Dana is very special,” he says.

Dana and Robby’s first conversation is about Dr. Jack Abbot (Shawn Hatosy), the ER doctor who works the night shift. Dana tells Robby that Abbot has gone to get “some air.” Her choice of words is significant because Abbot is actually standing on the hospital roof on the wrong side of the guardrail. “You know from the look on Robby’s face that he knows what ‘getting some air’ means,” Gemmill says. “There’s a lot of things that are not said but that are understood between these two characters.”

The creative team cut a scene from the pilot that revealed too much about the arc of Dr. Langdon, played by Patrick Ball.

(Warrick Page / HBO Max)

Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball)
“If you need me, I’ll be saving lives.”

Immediately introduced as the cocky senior resident , Langdon is later revealed to be stealing prescription drugs. But they were cognizant of keeping Langdon’s story arc a secret from viewers. “There was one sequence where we showed him with a slightly shaking hand,” Wyle says. “We felt like it tipped a bit too much. We ended up taking it out.”

Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif)
“I’m a 42–year–old R2. So I have my own haters. Trust me.”

In the pilot, McKay, who is older than the other residents, gets involved with two cases. She immediately picks up that something isn’t right between a mother who has come in with her sullen adolescent son. She also instantly knows that the mother who burnt her hand on a Sterno is unhoused. “What she lacks in not having [started] at a younger age, she makes up for with life experience.” Gemmill says.

Isa Briones as Trinity Santos in “The Pitt.”

(Warrick Page / HBO Max)

Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones)
“I got 50 bucks says she doesn’t last through this shift.”

Intern Trinity Santos comes in hot with a palpable ambition. She openly mocks her fellow residents with derogatory nicknames, but her outward bravado belies her backstory. “She has a history of abuse and trauma that has made her want to wear a suit of armor and tell the world to go f— itself before she has a chance to be hurt again,” Wyle says. “And we peel that layer to the very end of the run when you find out about what happened to her. Her compassion and empathy really comes into the fore in the latter half of the season.”

Dr. Melissa King (Taylor Dearden)
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here today.”

Nothing seems to get in the way of second-year resident Mel King’s outwardly cheerful demeanor. “She was a tricky one,” Gemmill says. “We walk a fine line with her. She’s fairly obviously neurodivergent, and I just wanted to really introduce a character like that and do it justice and do it properly, and Taylor has done a great job embodying that.”

Shabana Azeez and Gerran Howell in “The Pitt.” The latter’s Dr. Whittaker provides “comic relief” in the early episodes through the indignities he suffers.

(Warrick Page / HBO Max)

Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell)
“I’ll be this lady’s age by the time I pay off my student loans.”

Fourth-year medical student Whitaker doesn’t start off well. His phone rings during a moment of silence for a deceased patient and he injures his finger moving a patient off a gurney.

“He’s very much the comic relief in the early episodes,” Wyle says. “He’s the guy that we put through a series of degradations and humiliations, but like the Energizer Bunny, he keeps coming back. By braving all of these things, he becomes extremely endearing.”

Dr. Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez)
“I’ve earned the right to be here.”

Twenty-year-old prodigy Dr. Victoria Javadi is the daughter of two doctors. In the pilot, the third-year medical student faints the first time in the exam room and has painfully awkward exchanges with her peers. “You imagine that she was never with anyone her age,” Gemmill says. “Imagine a study group when she was in med school and she’s 14 or 15 years old. No one’s going to want to hang out with her. She becomes like a mascot to them. Her thing is to overcome that mascot image and become a person unto herself.”