Today is Wednesday, September 25, the 269th day of the year 2024. There are 97 days left in the year.
Today in History:
On September 25, 2018, Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in his suburban Philadelphia home. (After serving nearly three years in prison, Cosby was released in June 2021 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction.)
Also on this date:
In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and sighted the Pacific Ocean.
In 1789, the first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of these amendments became the Bill of Rights.)
In 1956, the first transatlantic telephone cable was officially put into service with a ceremonial three-way call between New York, Ottawa and London.
In 1957, nine black students who had been forced to drop out of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of an unruly white mob were escorted to class by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division and the National Guard.
In 1978, 144 people were killed when a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collided over San Diego.
In 2005, in the presence of disarmament observers, the Irish Republican Army dismantled its weapons arsenal, officially ending a 36-year armed campaign for a unified Irish state.
In 2012, President Barack Obama, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, pledged U.S. support for Syrians trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, calling him “a dictator who is slaughtering his own people.”
In 2013, skipper Jimmy Spithill and Oracle Team USA won the America’s Cup in one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the sport, overtaking Dean Barker and Emirates Team New Zealand in the knockout race 19 in San Francisco Bay.
Today’s birthdays:
- Basketball Hall of Famer Hubie Brown is 91.
- Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is 81.
- Actor and producer Michael Douglas is 80 years old.
- Model Cheryl Tiegs is 77 years old.
- Actress Mimi Kennedy is 76 years old.
- Director Pedro Almodovar is 75 years old.
- Actor-director Anson Williams is 75 years old.
- Actor Mark Hamill is 73 years old.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo is 73.
- Actor Michael Madsen is 66 years old.
- Actress Heather Locklear is 63 years old.
- Actress Aida Turturro is 62 years old.
- Actor Tate Donovan is 61 years old.
- Actress Maria Doyle Kennedy is 60 years old.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen is 59 years old.
- Actor Will Smith is 56 years old.
- Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is 55 years old.
- Football Hall of Famer John Lynch is 53.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups is 48 years old.
- Actress Clea DuVall is 47 years old.
- Rapper TI is 44 years old.
- Actor-rapper Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) is 41 years old.
- Actor Zach Woods is 40 years old.
- Actor Jordan Gavaris is 35 years old.
- Actress Leah Jeffries is 15 years old.
