Louis Brandeis is confirmed as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Nominated by President Woodrow Wilson, Brandeis is confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 47-22, ending an unprecedented confirmation battle. Opponents included Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.), who had declared, “For the first time in our history a man has been nominated to the Supreme Court with a view to attracting to the President a group of voters on racial grounds.” The first Jewish person to serve on the Supreme Court, Brandies, with fellow Massachusetts justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., comes to be known for his dissenting opinions, including one in 1928 in which he argues for “the right to be let alone.” He retires from the court on February 13, 1939.