1953 AHSME Problem 12

The diameters of two circles are 8 inches and 12 inches respectively. The ratio of the area of the smaller to the area of the larger circle is:

\textbf{(A)}\ \frac{2}{3} \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ \frac{4}{9} \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ \frac{9}{4} \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ \frac{1}{2}\qquad \textbf{(E)}\ \text{none of these}

Full credit goes to MAA for authoring these problems. These problems were taken on the AOPS website.