This Day in History

On Sept. 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

Also on this date:

In 1862, more than 3,600 men were killed in the Civil War Battle of Antietam (an-TEE'-tum) in Maryland.

In 1908, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge of the U.S. Army Signal Corps became the first person to die in the crash of a powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer, at Fort Myer, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.

In 1944, during World War II, Allied paratroopers launched Operation Market Garden, landing behind German lines in the Netherlands.

In 1978, after 12 days of meetings at the U.S. presidential retreat of Camp David, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (men-AH'-kem BAY'-gihn) signed the Camp David Accords, a framework for a peace treaty.

In 1980, former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay.

In 2001, six days after 9/11, stock prices nosedived but stopped short of collapse in an emotional, flag-waving reopening of Wall Street.

In 2011, a demonstration calling itself Occupy Wall Street began in New York, prompting similar protests around the U.S. and the world.

In 2021, a Los Angeles jury convicted New York real estate heir Robert Durst of killing his best friend 20 years earlier. (Durst, who was sentenced to life in prison, died in 2022.)

Today's Birthdays: Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is 91. Retired Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter (SOO'-tur) is 85. Mountaineer-explorer Reinhold Messner is 80. Basketball Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson is 79. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is 74. Actor Cassandra Peterson ("Elvira, Mistress of the Dark") is 73. Director-actor Paul Feig is 62. Film director Baz Luhrmann is 62. Singer BeBe Winans is 62. Actor Kyle Chandler is 59. Rapper Doug E. Fresh is 58. Author Cheryl Strayed is 56. Actor Matthew Settle is 55. Designer-TV personality Nate Berkus is 53. NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson is 49. NHL forward Alexander Ovechkin (oh-VECH'-kin) is 39. Actor Danielle Brooks is 35. NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes is 29.