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The almanac

By United Press International
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Today is Wednesday, Sept. 11, the 254th day of 2013 with 111 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. Evening stars are Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and Venus.

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include German optician Carl Zeiss in 1816; short story writer O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) in 1862; British author D.H. Lawrence in 1885; Jimmie Davis, former Louisiana governor and songwriter ("You Are My Sunshine") in 1899; College Football Hall of Fame Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant in 1913; former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos in 1917; Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach Tom Landry in 1924; former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, also in 1924 (age 89); Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov, the second man in space, in 1935; filmmaker Brian De Palma in 1940 (age 73); entertainer Lola Falana in 1942 (age 71); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead) in 1943 (age 70); guitarist Leo Kottke in 1945 (age 68); actors Amy Madigan in 1950 (age 63), Virginia Madsen in 1961 (age 52); Kristy McNichol in 1962 (age 51); Syrian President Bashar Assad in 1965 (age 48); singer Moby, born Richard Hall, also in 1965 (age 48); actor/singer Harry Connick Jr. in 1967 (age 46); and rapper Ludacris in 1977 (age 36).

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On this date in history:

In 1777, troops commanded by Gen. George Washington were defeated by the British under Gen. William Howe in the Battle of Brandywine.

In 1841, all members of U.S. President John Tyler's Cabinet except Secretary of State Daniel Webster resigned in protest of Tyler's veto of a banking bill.

In 1847, Stephen Foster's first hit, "Oh! Susanna," had its debut at a concert in a Pittsburgh saloon and soon became a standard for minstrel troupes.

In 1921, Fatty Arbuckle, one of the foremost comedians of the silent movie days, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in the death of a starlet in an alleged sexual assault during a wild drinking party. Arbuckle eventually was cleared but his career had been ruined.

In 1959, Congress passed a bill authorizing food stamps for low-income Americans.

In 1973, the elected Socialist government of Salvador Allende of Chile was toppled in a right-wing military coup supported by the CIA. Authorities said Allende committed suicide the same day.

In 1985, Pete Rose's 4,192nd hit broke Ty Cobb's 57-year-old career Major League Baseball record. He finished his career with 4,256 hits.

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In 1997, Mother Teresa received the first state funeral accorded a private citizen of India since the death of Mohandas K. Gandhi in 1948.

In 2001, Islamic terrorists attacked the United States, crashing two hijacked airliners into the twin towers at New York's World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania, apparently en route to Washington, after passengers attacked their captors. Nearly 3,000 people were killed, most of them in the two towers, which collapsed.

U.S. President George W. Bush pledged to destroy the responsible terrorist organizations and the regimes that supported them. Osama bin Laden, a wealthy anti-American Saudi exile operating out of Afghanistan and leader of al-Qaida, a shadowy, far-flung terrorist organization, was identified as the ringleader of the attacks.

In 2002, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, under German indictment on 3,000 charges of murder stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was arrested in Pakistan with others allegedly linked to al-Qaida.

In 2006, in a series of speeches commemorating the fifth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq, an act he said had made the United States safer and likened the fight against terrorism to conflicts with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

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In 2008, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, forced into a runoff after a disputed election, agreed on a power-sharing arrangement.

In 2009, former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was sentenced to life in prison for embezzlement, money laundering and taking bribes in a corruption case that also resulted in a life prison term for his wife. They were fined more than $15 million.

In 2011, the National 9/11 Memorial was dedicated in New York City's lower Manhattan on the site of the iconic Twin Towers, destroyed 10 years earlier in terrorist attacks that killed 3,000 people. The memorial features the nation's largest man-made waterfalls cascading into two sunken pools marking footprints of the decimated skyscrapers with 2,980 names nearby, etched in granite.

In 2012, "Even now, all these years later," U.S. President Barack Obama said on the 11th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, "it is easy for those of us who lived through that day to close our eyes and to find ourselves back ... when grief crashed over us like an awful wave." Bagpipes played at Memorial Plaza in New York City.

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Also in 2012, heavily armed attackers killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.


A thought for the day: "This is not only an attack on the United States but an attack on the civilized world," proclaimed German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults.

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