The September 17, 1981 was a Thursday under the star sign of ♍. It was the 259 day of the year. President of the United States was Ronald Reagan.
If you were born on this day, you are 44 years old. Your last birthday was on the Wednesday, September 17, 2025, 290 days ago. Your next birthday is on Thursday, September 17, 2026, in 74 days. You have lived for 16,361 days, or about 392,681 hours, or about 23,560,884 minutes, or about 1,413,653,040 seconds.
Date: 17 September 1981
Walter Cronkite is scheduled to appear in the near future on ''The CBS Evening News,'' CBS News said yesterday. Geraldine Sharpe-Newton made the announcement in response to inquiries.
Date: 17 September 1981
UPI
Upi
Underwater archeologists today reported finding the wreckage of two Civil War warships, calling the discovery the most historically significant of this field since the ironclad Monitor was found. Clive Cussler, special projects director for the nonprofit National Underwater and Marine Agency, said divers found the wreckage of the Union's Cumberland this summer in the James River near Newport News, Va.
Date: 17 September 1981
Phil Esposito, who won the National Hockey League scoring championship five times in 18 seasons with the Chicago Black Hawks, the Boston Bruins and the Rangers, will be the color commentator for the Rangers' televised games this season, sources at Madison Square Garden have confirmed. Madison Square Garden Network will make the announcement next Wednesday. Esposito replaces Bill Chadwick, who will work in the network's public relations and promotions department.
Date: 18 September 1981
AP
The House voted 372 to 19 today to cut off United States financial support for Unesco if the United Nations agency adopts a policy of fostering official controls over the press, particularly in third world countries. However, the House later voted 226 to 165 against the $6.2 billion State Department authorization bill, which included the Unesco amendment.
Date: 18 September 1981
By Dudley Clendinen, Special To the New York Times
Dudley Clendinen
In a memorial service this afternoon, William Loeb was consigned to his Lord by a Baptist preacher, and the question in New Hampshire now is what his passage will mean to the secular affairs of the state he dominated for 35 years but never lived in. The death last Sunday of the publisher of The Manchester Union Leader and Sunday News at the age of 75 is the biggest local story here in years. The region of New England is awash in the legend of his vitriolic power and in speculation about what changes his absence might bring. There has been no vital television station in New Hampshire, and the only statewide newspaper was William Loeb's. His critics say that the state's political, educational and religious leaders were left intimidated, and its treasury on the verge of bankruptcy for lack of broad-based taxes, by his long use of this forum to trumpet his highly conservative philosophy, to frame the issues of the day and to make cuttingly personal front-page editorial attacks on those he opposed.
Date: 18 September 1981
By William Borders, Special To the New York Times
William Borders
Geoffrey Parsons Jr., editor of The International Herald Tribune from 1944 to 1950 and a retired vice president of the Northrop Corporation, died today at his home in Benisa, Alicante Province, Spain. He was 73 years old. Mr. Parsons was also chief press officer and director of information of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from 1950 to 1957 under NATO's first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, and his successor, Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium.
Date: 18 September 1981
By Ernest Holsendolph, Special To the New York Times
Ernest Holsendolph
The Federal Communications Commission today urged Congress to abolish the rules that compel broadcasters to provide air time to politicians, opportunities to reply to attacks and to examine opposing sides of significant events. For decades, radio and television broadcasters have complained about the rules, which they say interfere with their operations and editorial decisions in ways unknown to newspaper editors. It is doubtful whether Congress will agree to the whole package, but the F.C.C.'s views reveal much about the orientation of the commission's new members. They seem much more responsive to the broadcasting industry's desires than the F.C.C. during the Carter years.
Date: 17 September 1981
By Michael T. Kaufman, Special To the New York Times
Michael Kaufman
At the same time that Pakistan formally accepted terms of the United States military sales and aid package yesterday, the Government in Islamabad summoned the Indian Ambassador, Natwar Singh, and presented him with a proposal for talks on troop reduction along the border and on the possibility of a nonaggression agreement. The two events, obviously related, underscore Pakistan's sensitivity that as the arms supply relationship with the United States is being resumed, India is stepping up bellicose language aimed at its western neighbor. ''There seems to have been a progressive erosion of restraints,'' commented Abdus Sattar, the Pakistani Ambassador here, as he discussed what he regards as the unwarranted fomenting of a war psychosis. In Islamabad, Mr. Sattar's superiors insist that while they have made every effort to inform India of their defense needs and wishes, the Indian Government has merely brushed aside these gestures and criticized the purchase of F-16 fighter aircraft from the United States as representing a real menace to India and touching off a costly arms race on the subcontinent.
Date: 18 September 1981
By Bernard Gwertzman, Special To the New York Times
Bernard Gwertzman
The first salvos of the long-anticipated debate on the sale of Awacs planes to Saudi Arabia have now been heard, and they seem to have put the Reagan Administration on the defensive. By making public the names of more than half of the Senate who favor disapproving the sale, the opposition has forced the Administration to decide whether to continue to press the issue to a vote or to seek an early face-saving compromi se. It is still too early to predict with certainty what will happen next, but the strength of the opposition has seemed to alarm the Administration, which had apparently not counted on so many senators coming forward in opposition before the Administration had had a chance to explain its case in detail. Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., who has been the first senior Administration official to speak at length publicly about the proposed sale of Airborne Warning and Control System planes, has issued a series of warnings about the implications for American foreign policy if the deal is not sustained by Congress.
Date: 17 September 1981
By Richard J. Meislin, Special To the New York Times
Richard Meislin
New York state and city officials are increasingly realizing that they must shift their emphasis from building new projects to restoring their existing transportation, water and other basic facilities if their economies are to survive. That assessment was driven home today by economists and public officials at the opening of a two-day conference here intended to focus attention on a growing public crisis: that many of the basic facilities provided by government, constructed in the early part of the century or before, are rapidly reaching the end of their useful lives. The conference was called by Speaker Stanley Fink of the State Assembly, a Brooklyn Democrat. He described the condition of New York's physical plant as ranging from ''very bad to worse.''