Today’s highlights

On Sept. 25, 1957, nine Black students who had 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 and the National Guard.

On this date

1513: Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and sighted the Pacific Ocean.

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.)

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

2005: In the presence of disarmament observers, the Irish Republican Army decommissioned its arsenal of weapons, officially ending a 36-year armed campaign for a unified Irish state.

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

Today’s birthdays

Basketball Hall of Famer Hubie Brown is 91. Actor-producer Michael Douglas is 80. Model Cheryl Tiegs is 77. Actor Mark Hamill is 73. Actor Michael Madsen is 66. Actor Heather Locklear is 63. Actor Will Smith is 56. Actor Catherine Zeta-Jones is 55. Football Hall of Famer John Lynch is 53. Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups is 48.