This Day in History

Today is Friday, Sept. 10, the 253d day of 2010. There are 112 days left until the end of the year.

Celebrities born on this day: Rapper Big Daddy Kane is 42. Singer Danny Hutton (Three Dog Night) is 68. Singer Jose Feliciano is 65. Former Canadian first lady Margaret Trudeau is 62. Political commentator Bill O’Reilly is 61. Actress Amy Irving is 57. Actor Sean O’Bryan is 47. MLB All-Star pitcher Randy Johnson is 47. Rock musician Matthew Followill (Kings of Leon) is 26. Singer Sanjaya Malakar (“American Idol’’) is 21.

► In 1608, John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.

► In 1813, an American naval force commanded by Oliver H. Perry defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

► In 1846, Elias Howe received a patent for his sewing machine.

► In 1963, 20 black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between federal authorities and Governor George C. Wallace.

► In 1979, four Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned for a 1954 attack on the US House of Representatives and a 1950 attempt on the life of President Harry S. Truman were freed from prison after being granted clemency by President Jimmy Carter.

► In 2000, the space shuttle Atlantis docked with the international space station.

Controversial basketball coach Bob Knight was fired by Indiana University for what was called a pattern of unacceptable behavior.

Marat Safin beat Pete Sampras 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 to become the first Russian to win the US Open.

NBC’s “The West Wing’’ won a record-setting nine Emmy awards, including best drama series;

NBC’s “Will and Grace’’ won best comedy.

The musical “Cats’’ closed on Broadway after 7,485 performances.

► In 2005, cadaver dogs and boatloads of forensic workers fanned out across New Orleans to collect the corpses left behind by Hurricane Katrina; cleanup crews towed away abandoned cars and began readying a hotel for reopening.

► In 2009, a frail Senator Robert Byrd addressed the Senate for the first time in months to pay tribute to Senator Edward Kennedy, his one-time rival and longtime friend.

The activist group ACORN fired two employees of its Baltimore office after they were seen in hidden-camera video giving tax advice to a pair of conservative activists, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, who were posing as a pimp and a prostitute.