Moments in Time – September 11, 2024

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• On Sept. 23, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt defended his beloved dog Fala’s honor while dining with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union. The canine had recently been the butt of a Republican political attack, and the president remarked that while he and his family had been the object of “malicious falsehoods” in the past, he asserted the right to “object to libelous statements about my dog.”
• On Sept. 24, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened on the National Mall. President Barack Obama led the ceremony and rang the Freedom Bell, a bell from an African American Baptist church founded in 1776.
• On Sept. 25, 1970, the hit series “The Partridge Family,” about a musical clan that was inspired by the real-life singing Cowsills, made its debut on ABC. Though most of the fictional family was portrayed by nonmusical actors, the show did propel lead singer David Cassidy onto the path of teen idol stardom.
• On Sept. 26, 1820, frontiersman Daniel Boone – who, incidentally, never wore a coonskin cap, preferring one of beaver instead – died in his sleep at his son’s home near present-day Defiance, Missouri, at the age of 86.
• On Sept. 27, 1989, Hollywood actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor, while standing trial for slapping a police officer, stormed out of the courtroom in the middle of the district attorney’s closing remarks. Later that day, she was convicted and given a sentence of 72 hours in jail, 120 hours of community service, and $13,000 in fines and restitution.
• On Sept. 28, 1918, a Liberty Loan parade in Philadelphia launched a severe outbreak of Spanish flu in the city that turned into a pandemic. By the time it ended, an estimated 20-50 million people around the world had died.
• On Sept. 29, 1988, Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, became the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which at 29,035 feet above sea level is Earth’s highest point. She was later part of a team that marked the first successful all-women ascent of Ama Dablam, a mountain of 22,495 feet, in Nepal.

© 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.