MILESTONES: September 11, birthdays for Taraji P. Henson, Harry Connick Jr., Ludacris

September 11, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle History

Taraji P. Henson. Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include actress Kristy McNichol, who was born in 1962; soccer executive and Hall of Fame player Franz Beckenbauer, who was born in 1945; singer Harry Connick Jr., who was born in 1967; actress Virginia Madsen, who was born in 1963; filmmaker Brian De Palma, who was born in 1940; rapper and actor Ludacris, who was born in 1977; singer, dancer and actress Lola Falana, who was born in 1943; actress Taraji Henson, who was born in 1970; women’s sports executive and former softball player Donna Lopiano, who was born in 1946; actress Elizabeth Henstridge, who was born in 1987; and actor John Hawkes, who was born in 1959.

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ANNIVERSARY OF TRAGEDY, DAY OF REMEMBRANCE: On this day in 2001, members of Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger airliners, flying two into the North and South towers of Lower Manhattan’s World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Passengers on the fourth plane resisted the hijackers, causing the plane to crash in western Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, and over 6,000 others were injured. The attacks comprised the deadliest terrorist attack in modern history and the deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the U.S.

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PLOT TWIST: INFLUENTIAL AUTHOR William Sydney Porter was born on this day in 1862. Porter wrote under pseudonym O. Henry and was best known for his short stories, which often featured plot twist endings. In an interview with the New York Times, Porter said he chose to adopt a pen name because he was going to send his stories to publications and didn’t know if they would be well-received. He explained, “I don’t know if [my work] amounts to much, so I want to get a literary alias.” Porter wrote 281 short stories after moving to New York City in 1902 and died here on June 5, 1910.

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MISSION TO MARS: NASA spacecraft Mars Global Surveyor reached Mars on this day in 1997, slowing enough to be captured by the planet’s gravity and to be pulled into an elliptical orbit. Though the spacecraft ceased to be reachable in 2006, the Surveyor was the first successful mission to Mars in two decades and made considerable progress in mapping the planet’s surface and atmosphere, taking pictures that suggest that water still flows on Mars.

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“We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us.”
— William S. Porter, aka O Henry, who was born on this day in 1862