Today is the 268th day of 2017. There are 97 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1957: Nine black students who had been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of unruly white crowds are escorted to class by members of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

OTHER EVENTS

1690: One of the earliest American newspapers, Publick Occurrences, publishes its first — and last — edition in Boston.

1775: American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen is captured by the British as he leads an attack on Montreal. (Allen was released by the British in 1778.)

1789: The first United States Congress adopts 12 amendments to the Constitution and sends them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)

1890: President Benjamin Harrison signs a measure establishing Sequoia National Park.

1917: Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto is born in Brooklyn, New York.

1932: The Spanish region of Catalonia receives a Charter of Autonomy (however, the Charter was revoked by Francisco Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War).

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

1962: Sonny Liston knocks out Floyd Patterson in round one to win the world heavyweight title at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

1978: Some 144 people are killed when a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collide over San Diego.

1981: Sandra Day O’Connor is sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

1992: NASA’s Mars Observer blasts off on a $980-million mission to “The Red Planet”. (The probe disappears just before entering Martian orbit in August 1993.)

1997: US President Bill Clinton pulls open the door of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, as he welcomes nine blacks who had faced hate-filled mobs 40 years earlier.

2007: Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group, is convicted in St George, Utah, of being an accomplice to rape for performing a wedding between a 19-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl. (The conviction was later overturned by the Utah Supreme Court; prosecutors ended up dropping the charges, since Jeffs is serving a life sentence in Texas in a separate case.) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing the United Nations, announces “the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed”, and indicates Tehran would disregard Security Council resolutions imposed by what he called “arrogant powers”. Japan’s Lower House of Parliament elects Yasuo Fukuda prime minister.

2012: US President Barack Obama, speaking to the UN General Assembly, pledges US support for Syrians trying to oust President Bashar Assad, calling him “a dictator who massacres his own people”. A survey of consumer confidence reaches its highest level since February on expectations that hiring would soon pick up. Singer and TV host Andy Williams dies at his Branson, Missouri, home at the age of 84.

2016: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump meet separately in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, giving each candidate fresh foreign policy talking points on the eve of their first presidential debate. Golf legend Arnold Palmer, 87, dies in Pittsburgh. Jose Fernandez, 24, ace right-hander for the Miami Marlins, is killed in a boating accident with two friends off Miami Beach. Country singer Jean Shepard, a Grand Old Opry staple, dies in Nashville at 82.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Broadcast journalist Barbara Walters is 88. Folk singer Ian Tyson is 84. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is 74. Actor Josh Taylor is 74. Actor Robert Walden is 74. Actor-producer Michael Douglas is 73. Model Cheryl Tiegs is 70. Actress Mimi Kennedy is 69. Basketball Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo is 66. Polka bandleader Jimmy Sturr is 66. Actor Colin Friels is 65. Actor Michael Madsen is 59. Actress Heather Locklear is 56. Actress Aida Turturro is 55. Actor Tate Donovan is 54. TV personality Keely Shaye Smith is 54. Actress Maria Doyle Kennedy is 53. Basketball Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen is 52. Actor Jason Flemyng is 51. Actor Will Smith is 49. Actor Hal Sparks is 48. Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is 48. Actor Robbie Jones is 40. Actor Joel David Moore is 40. Actor Chris Owen is 37. Rapper T I is 37. Actor Van Hansis is 36. Actor Lee Norris is 36. Actor/rapper Donald Glover (AKA Childish Gambino) is 34.

— AP