TODAY IN HISTORY

On Sept. 12, 1942, during World War II, a German Uboat off West Africa torpedoed the RMS Laconia, which was carrying Italian prisoners of war, British soldiers and civilians; it's estimated more than 1,600 people died, while some 1,100 survived after the ship sank. The German crew, joined by other U- boats, began rescue operations. (On Sept. 16, the rescue effort came to an abrupt halt when the Germans were attacked by a U.S. Army bomber; as a result, U- boat commanders were ordered to no longer rescue civilian survivors of submarine attacks.)

On this date:

In 1814, the Battle of North Point took place in Maryland during the War of 1812 as American forces slowed British troops advancing on Baltimore.

In 1846, Elizabeth Barrett secretly married Robert Browning at St. Marylebone Church in London.

In 1914, during World War I, the First Battle of the Marne ended in an Allied victory against Germany.

In 1938, Adolf Hitler demanded the right of selfdetermination for the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.

In 1944, the Second Quebec Conference opened with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in attendance.

In 1953, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Newport.

In 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy addressed questions about his Roman Catholic faith, telling the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, "I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."

In 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed by Ethiopia's military after ruling for 58 years.

In 1977, South African black student leader and antiapartheid activist Steve Biko, 30, died while in police custody, triggering an international outcry.

In 1986, Joseph Cicippio, the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped ( he was released in December 1991).

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 for one of his own campaign speeches. (The Kinnock report, along with other damaging revelations, prompted Biden to drop his White House bid.)