Today is Tuesday, September 17, the 261st day of 2024. There are 105 days left in the year.
Today in History:
On September 17, 2011, a demonstration called Occupy Wall Street began in New York, leading to similar protests around the United States and the world.
Also this date:
In 1787, the United States Constitution was completed and signed by a majority of the delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
In 1862, more than 3,600 men were killed in the Civil War battle of Antietam (an-TEE’-tum) in Maryland.
In 1908, Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge of the US Army Signal Corps became the first person to die in the crash of a powered airplane, the Wright Flyer, at Fort Myer, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC
In 1944, during World War II, Allied paratroopers launched Operation Market Garden and landed behind German lines in the Netherlands.
In 1978, after 12 days of meetings at the US presidential retreat at Camp David, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (men-AH’-kem BAY’-gihn) signed the Camp David Accords, a framework peace treaty.
In 1980, Nicaragua’s former president Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay.
In 2001, six days after 9/11, stock prices fell but stopped short of collapsing in an emotional, flag-waving reopening of Wall Street.
In 2021, a jury in Los Angeles convicted New York real estate heir Robert Durst of killing his best friend 20 years earlier. (Durst, who was sentenced to life in prison, died in 2022.)
Today’s birthdays:
- Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is 91.
- Retired Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter (SOO’ turn) is 85 years old.
- Mountaineer Reinhold Messner is 80 years old.
- Basketball Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson is 79 years old.
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is 74 years old.
- Actor Cassandra Peterson (“Elvira, Mistress of the Dark”) is 73.
- Actor Paul Feig is 62 years old.
- Film director Baz Luhrmann is 62 years old.
- Singer BeBe Winans is 62 years old.
- Actor Kyle Chandler is 59.
- Rapper Doug E. Fresh is 58.
- Author Cheryl Strayed is 56.
- Actor Matthew Settle is 55.
- Designer TV personality Nate Berkus is 53.
- NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson is 49.
- NHL forward Alexander Ovechkin (oh-VECH’-kin) is 39.
- Actress Danielle Brooks is 35.
- NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes is 29.