Today is Sunday, Sept. 12, the 255th day of 2021.
There are 110 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
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On Sept. 12, 2001, stunned rescue workers continued to search for bodies in the World Trade Center’s smoking rubble a day after a terrorist attack that shut down the financial capital, badly damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead. President George W. Bush, branding the attacks in New York and Washington “acts of war,” spoke of “a monumental struggle of good versus evil” and said that “good will prevail.”
On this date:
In 1914, during World War I, the First Battle of the Marne ended in an Allied victory against Germany.
In 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Cooper v. Aaron, unanimously ruled that Arkansas officials who were resisting public school desegregation orders could not disregard the high court’s rulings.
In 1962, in a speech at Rice University in Houston, President John F. Kennedy reaffirmed his support for the manned space program, declaring: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
In 1966, “The Monkees” debuted on NBC-TV; “Family Affair” premiered on CBS.
In 1977, South African Black student leader and anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko (BEE’-koh), 30, died while in police custody, triggering an international outcry.
In 1987, reports surfaced that Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden had borrowed, without attribution, passages of a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock (KIHN’-ik) for one of his own campaign speeches. (The Kinnock report, along with other damaging revelations, prompted Biden to drop his White House bid.)
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In 1994, a stolen, single-engine Cessna crashed into the South Lawn of the White House, coming to rest against the executive mansion; the pilot, Frank Corder, was killed.
In 1995, the Belarusian military shot down a hydrogen balloon during an international race, killing its two American pilots, John Stuart-Jervis and Alan Fraenckel.
In 2003, in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, U.S. forces mistakenly opened fire on vehicles carrying police, killing eight of them.
In 2008, a Metrolink commuter train struck a freight train head-on in Los Angeles, killing 25 people. (Federal investigators said the Metrolink engineer, Robert Sanchez, who was among those who died, had been text-messaging on his cell phone and ran a red light shortly before the crash.)
In 2009, Serena Williams’ U.S. Open title defense ended with a bizarre loss to Kim Clijsters (KLY’-sturz) after Williams went into a tirade against a line judge who’d called her for a foot fault; following her outburst, Williams was penalized a point for unsportsmanlike conduct, ending the match, 6-4, 7-5.
In 2012, the U.S. dispatched an elite group of Marines to Tripoli, Libya, after the mob attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. President Barack Obama strongly condemned the violence, and vowed to bring the killers to justice; Republican challenger Mitt Romney accused the administration of showing weakness in the face of tumultuous events in the Middle East.
