HISTORY TODAY: September 26




1960 Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy
participate in the first nationally televised debate between presidential candidates.

1777The British army launches a major offensive, capturing Philadelphia.
1786France and Britain sign a trade agreement in London.
1820The legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone dies quietly at the Defiance, Mo., home of his son Nathan, at age 85.
1826The Persian cavalry is routed by the Russians at the Battle of Ganja in the Russian Caucasus.
1829Scotland Yard, the official British criminal investigation organization, is formed.
1864General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his men assault a Federal garrison near Pulaski, Tennessee.
1901Leon Czolgosz, who murdered President William McKinley, is sentenced to death..
1913The first boat is raised in the locks of the Panama Canal.
1914The Federal Trade Commission is established to foster competition by preventing monopolies in business.
1918German Ace Ernst Udet shoots down two Allied planes, bringing his total for the war up to 62.
1937Bessie Smith, known as the ‘Empress of the Blues,’ dies in a car crash in Mississippi.
1940During the London Blitz, the underground Cabinet War Room suffers a hit when a bomb explodes on the Clive Steps.
1941The U.S. Army establishes the Military Police Corps.
1950General Douglas MacArthur‘s American X Corps, fresh from the Inchon landing, links up with the U.S. Eighth Army after its breakout from the Pusan Perimeter.
1955The New York Stock Exchange suffers a $44 million loss.
1960Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy participate in the first nationally televised debate between presidential candidates.
1961Nineteen-year-old Bob Dylan makes his New York singing debut at Gerde’s Folk City.
1967Hanoi rejects a U.S. peace proposal.
1969The Beatles last album, Abbey Road, is released.
1972Richard M. Nixon meets with Emperor Hirohito in Anchorage, Alaska, the first-ever meeting of a U.S. President and a Japanese Monarch.
1977Israel announces a cease-fire on the Lebanese border.
1983In the USSR Stanislav Petrov disobeys procedures and ignores electronic alarms indicating five incoming nuclear missiles, believing the US would launch more than five if it wanted to start a war. His decision prevented a retaliatory attack that would have begun a nuclear war between the superpowers..
1984The UK agrees to transfer sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China.
1997Two earthquakes strike Italy, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis to collapse, killing four people and destroying much of the cycle of frescoes depicting the saint’s life.
2008
Yves Rossy, a Swiss pilot and inventor, is the first person to fly a jet-powered wing across the English Channel.

Born on September 26

1783Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), American pioneer.
1783Jane Taylor, children’s writer best known as the author of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
1887Barnes Wallis, British aeronautical engineer who invented the “Bouncing Bombs” used to destroy German dams during World War II.
1888T.S. Eliot, poet, critic, and dramatist whose work includes The Waste Land and Murder in the Cathedral.
1898George Gershwin, composer who wrote many popular songs for musicals, along with his brother Ira.
1949Jane Smiley, novelist (A Thousand Acres, Moo).
1953Dolores Keane, Irish folk singer; founding member of the band De Dannan.
1955Carlene Carter, country-rock singer, songwriter, musician; daughter of June Carter, stepdaughter of Johnny Cash (“Keep It Out of Sight,” “Cool Reaction”).
1969David Slade, director (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night).



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