1943During World War Two, Nazi German paratroopers rescue Benito Mussolini, Italy's deposed dictator. They free him from a hotel in northern Italy where his own government was holding him prisoner. Mussolini rules a Nazi puppet state in the north until he's killed near the war's end in Europe two years later. 1960John F. Kennedy faces critics who question whether being a Catholic should disqualify him for the White House. The democratic presidential candidate tells a group of Protestant ministers in Houston. “I am not the Catholic candidate for president; I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.” Kennedy becomes America's first Catholic president when he narrowly defeats Richard Nixon that fall. 1953Wedding bells for a future White House couple, as Kennedy marries Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island.

1977In South Africa, black student leader Steve Biko dies while in police custody. His death triggers a global outcry against South Africa's racist apartheid regime.

And 2003“Because you're mine, I walk the line.”

In Nashville, singer Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, dies of complications from diabetes. The country music legend was 71. Today in History, September 12th, Ed Donahue, the Associated Press.