TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, Sept. 25, the 269th day of 2016. There are 97 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On Sept. 25, 1956, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable officially went into service with a three-way ceremonial call between New York, Ottawa and London.

On this date

1513 — Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and sighted the Pacific Ocean. 1690 — One of the earliest American newspapers, Publick Occurrences, published its first — and last — edition in Boston. 1775 — American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen was captured by the British as he led an attack on Montreal. (Allen was released by the British in 1778.) 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.) 1890 — President Benjamin Harrison signed a measure establishing Sequoia National Park. 1919 — President Woodrow Wilson collapsed after a speech in Pueblo, Colorado, during a national speaking tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles. 1932 — The Spanish region of Catalonia received a Charter of Autonomy. (However, the Charter was revoked by Francisco Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War.) 1957 — Nine black students who’d been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock,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. 1962 — Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in round one to win the world heavyweight title at Comiskey Park in Chicago. 1978 — A Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collided over San Diego, killing 144 people. 1981 — Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

Five years ago

Declaring they’d been detained because of their nationality, not their actions, Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer, two American hikers held for more than two years in an Iranian prison, returned to the United States.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah decreed that women would, for the first time, have the right to vote and run in local elections due in 2015.

One year ago

House Speaker John Boehner abruptly announced his resignation.

President Barack Obama laid out a fresh threat of sanctions for economic espionage emanating from China, even as he and President Xi Jinping pledged their countries would not conduct or support such hacking.

International leaders at the United Nations approved an ambitious 15-year plan to tackle the world’s biggest problems, from eradicating poverty to preserving the planet.

Thought for today ‘History is too serious to be left to historians.’ Iain Macleod British politician (1913-1970)