TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: SEPTEMBER 26
1580 Sir Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England, aboard the Golden Hind, after a 33-month voyage to circumnavigate the globe.
1687 Acropolis in Athens attacked by Venetian army trying to eject Turks, damaging the Parthenon
1777 The British army launches a major offensive, capturing Philadelphia.
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.
1815 Russia, Prussia and Austria sign the Holy Alliance
1829 Scotland Yard, the official British criminal investigation organization, is formed.
1901 Leon Czolgosz, who murdered President William McKinley, is sentenced to death..
1914 The Federal Trade Commission is established to foster competition by preventing monopolies in business.
1918 During World War I, the Meuse-Argonne offensive against the Germans began. It was the final Allied offensive on the western front.
1941 The U.S. Army establishes the Military Police Corps.
1950 General 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.
1955 The New York Stock Exchange suffers a $44 million loss.
1960 Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy participate in the first nationally televised debate between presidential candidates.
1972 American Museum of Immigration dedicated
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.
1983 In 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.
1984 Pres Reagan vetoes sanctions against South Africa
1986 William H. Rehnquist became chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court following the retirement of Warren Burger.
1991 The U.S. Congress heard a plea from Kimberly Bergalis concerning mandatory AIDS testing for health care workers.
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.
2001 Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced plans to formalize a cease-fire and end a year of fighting in the region.
2006 Facebook was openened to everyone at least 13 years or older with a valid email address.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
