Today is Saturday, Sept. 12, the 256th day of 2020. There are 110 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 12, 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.”
On this date:
In 1913, Olympic legend Jesse Owens was born in Oakville, Ala.
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.)
In 1992, the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off, carrying with it Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space; Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space; and Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese national to fly on a U.S. spaceship.
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.
In 2005, at the start of his confirmation hearing, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts pledged to judge with humility and “without fear or favor” if approved as the nation’s 17th chief justice.
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.
Today’s Birthdays: Former U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is 81. Actor Linda Gray is 80. Singer Maria Muldaur is 78. Original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood is 68. Actor Peter Scolari is 65. Actor Rachel Ward is 63. Actor Amy Yasbeck is 58. Rock musician Norwood Fisher (Fishbone) is 55. Actor Darren E. Burrows is 54. Basketball Hall of Fame player Yao Ming is 40. Singer-actor Jennifer Hudson is 39.
