TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, SEPT. 25, the 269th day of 2020. There are 97 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1957, nine Black students who’d been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of unruly white crowds were escorted to class by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
In 1789, the first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)
In 1904, a New York City police officer ordered a female automobile passenger on Fifth Avenue to stop smoking a cigarette. (A male companion was arrested and later fined $2 for “abusing” the officer.)
In 1911, ground was broken for Boston’s Fenway Park.
In 1956, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable officially went into service with a three-way ceremonial call between New York, Ottawa and London.
In 1978, 144 people were killed when a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collided over San Diego.
In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.
In 1992, NASA’s Mars Observer blasted off on a $980 million mission to the red planet (the probe disappeared just before entering Martian orbit in August 1993).
In 2016, golf legend Arnold Palmer, 87, died in Pittsburgh. Jose Fernandez, 24, ace right-hander for the Miami Marlins, was killed in a boating accident with two friends off Miami Beach.
In 2018, Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home. President Donald Trump denounced the “ideology of globalism” and praised his own administration’s achievements in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly that drew headshakes and even laughter from fellow world leaders.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Broadcast journalist Barbara Walters is 91. Folk singer Ian Tyson is 87. Polka bandleader Jimmy Sturr is 79. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and actors Josh Taylor and Robert Walden are 77. Actor-producer Michael Douglas is 76. Model Cheryl Tiegs is 73. Actor Mimi Kennedy is 72. Movie director Pedro Almodovar and actordirector Anson Williams are 71. Actor Mark Hamill and Basketball Hall-of-Famer Bob McAdoo are 69. Actor Colin Friels is 68. Actor Michael Madsen is 62. Actor Heather Locklear is 59. Actor Aida Turturro is 58. Actor Tate Donovan and TV personality Keely Shaye Smith are 57. Actor Maria Doyle Kennedy is 56. Basketball Hall-of-Famer Scottie Pippen is 55. Actor Jason Flemyng is 54. Actor Will Smith is 52. Actors Hal Sparks and Catherine Zeta-Jones are 51. Actors Clea DuVall, Robbie Jones and Joel David Moore are 43. Actor Chris Owen and rapper T. I. are 40. Actors Van Hansis and Lee Norris are 39. Actor/rapper Donald Glover (AKA Childish Gambino) is 37. Actor Zach Woods is 36. Actor Jordan Gavaris is 31.