TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 26
1580 – Frances Drake completes circumnavigation of the world, sailing into Plymouth aboard the Golden Hind
1777 – Philadelphia was occupied by British troops during the American Revolutionary War.
1786 – Protestors shut down the court in Springfield, Massachusetts starting the Shay’s Rebellion
1789 – Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s first Secretary of State. John Jay was appointed the first chief justice of the U.S. Samuel Osgood was appointed the first Postmaster-General. Edmund Jennings Randolph was appointed the first Attorney General.
1815 – Russia, Prussia and Austria sign the Holy Alliance
1829 – Scotland Yard, the official British criminal investigation organization, is formed.
1914 – The Federal Trade Commission is established to foster competition by preventing monopolies in business.
1941 – The U.S. Army establishes the Military Police Corps.
1950 – United Nations troops recaptured Seoul, the capital of South Korea, from the North Koreans.
1956 – The bloody clash between Jordanian and Israeli forces leaving heavy casualties on both sides, this is the seventh such clash in a short period as the area becomes more unstable.
1960 – Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy took part in the first televised presidential debate.
1967 – Hanoi rejects a U.S. peace proposal.
1969 – The trial of the “Chicago Seven” begins they were accused of conspiring to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
1972 – Richard M. Nixon meets with Emperor Hirohito in Anchorage, Alaska, the first-ever meeting of a U.S. President and a Japanese Monarch.
1980 – The Cuban government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor to end the freedom flotilla of Cuban refugees that began the previous April.
1984 – The UK agrees to transfer sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China.
1986 – William H. Rehnquist became chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court following the retirement of Warren Burger.
1990 – The Motion Picture Association of America announced that it had created a new rating. The new NC17 rating was to keep moviegoers under the age of 17 from seeing certain films.
1991 – Four men and four women began their two-year stay inside the “Biosphere II.” The project was intended to develop technology for future space colonies.
2000 – The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. The act states that an infant would be considered to have been born alive if he or she is completely extracted or expelled from the mother and breathes and has a beating heart and definite movement of the voluntary muscles.
2001 – In Kabul, Afghanistan, the abandoned U.S. Embassy was stormed by protesters. It was the largest anti-Amercian protest since the terror attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, on September 11
2005 – Army Pfc. Lynndie England was convicted by a military jury during her court martial for charges of conspiracy to maltreat prisoners and assault consummated by battery stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
