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This Week in History for Sept. 25-Oct. 1

By The Associated Press - | Sep 24, 2022

California Gov. Ronald Reagan was greeted by Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen, right, as he arrived at the home of Eureka College President Ira Langston in Eureka, Illinois on Sept. 28, 1967. Reagan is an alumnus returning to help dedicate the new college library. President and Mrs. Ira Langston are in the background waiting to greet Gov. Reagan. (AP Photo/CEK)

Today is Sunday, Sept. 25, the 268th day of 2022. There are 97 days left in the year.

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Today’s Highlight in History

On Sept. 25, 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.

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Brewersí Hank Aaron, holder of baseballís home run record, swings two bats as he warms up for his final appearance for the season at Milwaukee County Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 29, 1975 during game against the Detroit Tigers. Many fans feel that Aaron will be offered the managerís job to replace fired Del Crandall. (AP Photo)

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 the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson collapsed after a speech in Pueblo, Colorado, during a national speaking tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles (vehr-SY’).

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

First lady Betty Ford and Vittoria Leone, left, wife of Italian President Giovanni Leone, watch as their husbands review the honor guard on Sept. 25, 1974 on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo)

In 1964, the situation comedy “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.,” starring Jim Nabors, premiered on CBS-TV.

In 1978, 144 people were killed when a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collided over San Diego.

In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

In 1992, NASA’s Mars Observer blasted off on a $980 million mission to the red planet (the probe disappeared just before entering Martian orbit in August 1993).

In 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin began a five-day swing through the United States as he arrived in New York, hoping to encourage American investment in his country’s struggling economy.

Clark Gable, Hollywood film actor, appears as Colonel Pieter de Winter, Dutch resistance leader, during the shooting of "The True and the Brave," at Maastricht, the Netherlands, Sept. 27, 1953. Others are unidentified. (AP Photo)

In 2016, golf legend Arnold Palmer, 87, died in Pittsburgh. Jose Fernandez, 24, ace right-hander for the Miami Marlins, was killed in a boating accident with two friends off Miami Beach. Country singer Jean Shepard, a Grand Old Opry staple, died in Nashville at 82.

In 2018, Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home. (After nearly three years in prison, Cosby went free in June 2021 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction.)

In 2020, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state at the U.S. Capitol, making history as the first woman so honored in America. Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses in Florida and banned local fines against people who refused to wear masks as he sought to reopen the state’s economy despite the spread of the coronavirus.

Ten years ago: President Barack Obama, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly, pledged U.S. support for Syrians trying to oust President Bashar Assad, calling him “a dictator who massacres his own people.” Singer and TV host Andy Williams died at his Branson, Missouri, home at the age of 84.

Five years ago: Former congressman Anthony Weiner was sentenced to 21 months behind bars for illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl. North Korea’s top diplomat said his country had the right to shoot down U.S. warplanes, after President Donald Trump’s weekend tweet suggesting that the North’s Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer.” Britain’s Prince Harry and girlfriend Meghan Markle made their first public appearance as a couple, attending a wheelchair tennis event at the Invictus Games for wounded veterans in Toronto.

One year ago: An Amtrak train derailed in north-central Montana killing three people and leaving seven others hospitalized.

Today’s Birthdays: Former broadcast journalist Barbara Walters is 93. Folk singer Ian Tyson is 89. Polka bandleader Jimmy Sturr is 81. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is 79. Actor Josh Taylor is 79. Actor Robert Walden is 79. Actor-producer Michael Douglas is 78. Model Cheryl Tiegs is 75. Actor Mimi Kennedy is 74. Movie director Pedro Almodovar is 73. Actor-director Anson Williams is 73. Actor Mark Hamill is 71. Basketball Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo is 71. Actor Colin Friels is 70. Actor Michael Madsen is 64. Actor Heather Locklear is 61. Actor Aida Turturro is 60. Actor Tate Donovan is 59. TV personality Keely Shaye Smith is 59. Actor Maria Doyle Kennedy is 58. Basketball Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen is 57. Actor Jason Flemyng is 56. Actor Will Smith is 54. Actor Hal Sparks is 53. Actor Catherine Zeta-Jones is 53. Rock musician Mike Luce (Drowning Pool) is 51. Actor Bridgette Wilson-Sampras is 49. Actor Clea DuVall is 45. Actor Robbie Jones is 45. Actor Joel David Moore is 45. Actor Chris Owen is 42. Rapper T. I. is 42. Actor Van Hansis is 41. Actor Lee Norris is 41. Actor/rapper Donald Glover (AKA Childish Gambino) is 39. Actor Zach Woods is 38. Actor Jordan Gavaris is 33. Olympic silver medal figure skater Mao Asada is 32. Actor Emmy Clarke is 31.

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SEPTEMBER 26

On Sept. 26, 1960, the first-ever debate between presidential nominees took place as Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon faced off before a national TV audience from Chicago.

In 1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.

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SEPTEMBER 27

On Sept. 27, 1996, in Afghanistan, the Taliban, a band of former seminary students, drove the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of Kabul, captured the capital and executed former leader Najibullah.

In 1779, John Adams was named by Congress to negotiate the Revolutionary War’s peace terms with Britain.

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SEPTEMBER 28

On Sept. 28, 1928, Scottish medical researcher Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first effective antibiotic.

In 1841, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow completed his poem “Excelsior.”

In 1850, flogging was abolished as a form of punishment in the U.S. Navy.

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SEPTEMBER 29

On Sept. 29, 1938, British, French, German and Italian leaders concluded the Munich Agreement, which was aimed at appeasing Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

On Sept. 29, 1938, British, French, German and Italian leaders concluded the Munich Agreement, which was aimed at appeasing Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

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SEPTEMBER 30

On Sept. 30, 1777, the Continental Congress – forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces – moved to York, Pennsylvania.

In 1947, the World Series was broadcast on television for the first time; the New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-3 in Game 1 (the Yankees went on to win the Series four games to three).

In 1955, actor James Dean, 24, was killed in a two-car collision near Cholame, California.

In 1960, “The Flintstones,” network television’s first animated prime-time series, debuted on ABC.

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OCTOBER 1

On Oct. 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire from a room at the Mandalay Bay casino hotel in Las Vegas on a crowd of 22,000 country music fans at a concert below, leaving 58 people dead and more than 800 injured in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history; the gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock, killed himself before officers arrived.

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