This day in history

Today is Tuesday, Sept. 12, the 255th day of 2023. There are 110 days left in the year.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Linda Gray is 83. Singer Maria Muldaur is 81. Actor Amy Yasbeck is 61. Actor Darren E. Burrows is 57. Actor-singer Will Chase is 53. Actor Josh Hopkins is 53. Country singer Jennifer Nettles is 49. Rapper 2 Chainz is 46. Actor Ben McKenzie is 45. Basketball Hall of Fame player Yao Ming is 43. Singer-actor Jennifer Hudson is 42. Actor Alfie Allen is 37.

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

▶ In 1958, the US 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 1959, the Soviet Union launched its Luna 2 space probe, which made a crash landing on the moon.

▶ 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 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.”

▶ In 2005, Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown resigned, three days after losing his onsite command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

▶ In 2013, Voyager 1, launched 36 years earlier, became the first man-made spacecraft to leave the solar system.