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It’s been said that there’s no time like the present. But where we are now is often the result of where we’ve been in the past. With that in mind, Briefly Legal invites you to travel back in time to take a look at what happened during this week in legal history:

July 26 marks the Federal Bureau of Investigation鈥檚 104^th birthday. Originally called the Office of the Chief Examiner upon its creation in 1908, the agency became the Bureau of Investigation and then, in 1935, the FBI. Its creation allowed the federal government to hire permanent investigators rather than using private detectives to investigate crimes that crossed state borders. The agency鈥檚 staff initially consisted of a bunch of accountants and 10 former Secret Service agents. It grew to 34 investigators by the following spring and more than 300 within just a few years. Today, the agency boasts nearly 14,000 special agents and continues its legacy of generating controversy.

The 14^th Amendment, which granted citizenship to African-Americans, was adopted as part of the U.S. Constitution on July 28, 1868. The amendment鈥檚 鈥渆qual protection鈥� clause laid the foundation for the movement against racial segregation, which was derailed by the 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥� argument at the heart of Plessy v. Ferguson. The U.S. Supreme Court struck that notion down in 1954 with its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Also on July 28 鈥� this time in 1945 鈥� the U.S. Senate approved the charter establishing the United Nations. The move followed years of U.S. isolationism after the first two world wars, and symbolically positioned the U.S. at the center of world peace discussions. However, as History.com notes, the UN also provided a highly visible pulpit for the U.S. and its Cold War enemies to showcase their confrontations.

Other notables from this week in legal history: On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized NASA鈥檚 creation, nearly two years to the day that he authorized 鈥淚n God We Trust鈥� as America鈥檚 national motto. And on July 27, 1974, the U.S. House of Representatives began its impeachment hearings against former President Richard Nixon.

Our thanks to History.com for this week鈥檚 legal tidbits.