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Almanac

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 12, the 255th day of 2018. There are 110 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Sept. 12, 1942, during World War II, a German U-boat off West Africa torpedoed the RMS Laconia, which was carrying Italian prisoners of war, British soldiers and civilians; it’s estimated more than 1,600 people died while some 1,100 survived after the ship sank. The German crew, joined by other U-boats, began rescue operations. (On September 16, the rescue effort came to an abrupt halt when the Germans were attacked by a U.S. Army bomber; as a result, U-boat commanders were ordered to no longer rescue civilian survivors of submarine attacks.)

On this date:

In 1846, Elizabeth Barrett secretly married Robert Browning at St. Marylebone Church in London.

In 1953, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (boo-vee-AY’) in Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Cooper v. Aaron, unanimously ruled that Arkansas officials who were resisting public school desegregation orders could not disregard the high court’s rulings.

In 1986, Joseph Cicippio (sih-SIH’-pee-oh), the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped (he was released in December 1991).

In 1987, reports surfaced that Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden had borrowed, without attribution, passages of a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock (KIHN’-ik) for one of his own campaign speeches. (The Kinnock report, along with other damaging revelations, prompted Biden to drop his White House bid.)

In 1994, a stolen, single-engine Cessna crashed into the South Lawn of the White House, coming to rest against the executive mansion; the pilot, Frank Corder, was killed.

Ten years ago: A Metrolink commuter train struck a freight train head-on in Los Angeles, killing 25 people.

Five years ago: Omar Hammami, an American who became one of Somalia’s most visible Islamic rebels, was killed by rivals in the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab.

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