2009: Sonia Sotomayor is appointed as an associate justi

Sonia Sotomayor is appointed as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama, becoming the first Hispanic and third female member of the Court. Sotomayor had been appointed in 1991 to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998 by President Bill Clinton.