Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 26, 1960, the first televised debate between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon took place in Chicago.
On this date:
In 1777, British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
In 1789, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s first secretary of state.
In 1888, poet T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis.
In 1914, the Federal Trade Commission was established.
In 1952, philosopher George Santayana died in Rome at age 88.
In 1955, following word that President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack, the New York Stock Exchange saw its worst price decline since 1929.
In 1980, the Cuban government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the “freedom flotilla” of Cuban refugees that had begun the previous April.
In 1981, the twin-engine Boeing 767 made its maiden flight in Everett, Wash.
In 1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
In 1991, four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Ariz., called Biosphere 2. (They emerged from the Biosphere on this date in 1993.)
Ten years ago: Astronaut Shannon Lucid returned to Earth in the shuttle Atlantis after six months aboard the Russian Mir space station. President Clinton signed a bill ensuring two-day hospital stays for new mothers and their babies. ValuJet received federal permission to fly again three months after it was grounded following a deadly crash. Richard Allen Davis, the killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, was formally sentenced to death in San Jose, Calif.
Five years ago: In truce talks held at the urging of the United States, Israel and the Palestinians agreed on a series of confidence-building measures aimed at ending a year of fighting. During a visit to Armenia, Pope John Paul II paid his respects to the vast number of Armenians who perished under Ottoman rule. In Cincinnati, a white police officer was acquitted in the shooting death of an unarmed black man, a killing that sparked the city’s worst racial unrest in three decades.
One year ago: Army Private First Class Lynndie England was convicted by a military jury in Fort Hood, Texas, on six of seven counts stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. (England was later sentenced to three years in prison.) International weapons inspectors backed by Protestant and Catholic clergymen announced the Irish Republican Army’s full disarmament.
Today’s Birthdays: Fitness expert Jack LaLanne is 92. Actor Philip Bosco is 76. Country singer David Frizzell is 65. Actor Kent McCord is 64. Television host Anne Robinson is 62. Singer Bryan Ferry is 61. Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman is 60. Singer Lynn Anderson is 59. Singer Olivia Newton-John is 58. Actress Mary Beth Hurt is 58. Actor James Keane is 54. Rock singer-musician Cesar Rosas (Los Lobos) is 52. Country singer Carlene Carter is 51. Actress Linda Hamilton is 50. Country singer Doug Supernaw is 46. Actress Melissa Sue Anderson is 44. Actor Patrick Bristow is 44. Rock musician Al Pitrelli is 44. Singer Tracey Thorn (Everything But The Girl) is 44. TV personality Jillian Barberie is 40. Actor Jim Caviezel is 38. Singer Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men) is 34. Jazz musician Nicholas Payton is 33. Actor Mark Famiglietti is 27. Singer-actress Christina Milian is
25. Tennis player Serena Williams is 25.
Thought for Today: “That the end of life should be death may sound sad; yet what other end can anything have?” — George Santayana, American philosopher (1863-1952).