On this day: September 26
Sir Francis Drake completes his trip around the world, Nixon and Kennedy square off on TV, the Beatles release "Abbey Road," and an acting legend passes away, all on this day.
1580: Sir Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth by sailing into Plymouth, England, after nearly three years, with 59 out of 164 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures.
1580: Sir Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth by sailing into Plymouth, England, after nearly three years, with 59 out of 164 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures.
1687: The Parthenon in Athens is partially destroyed by an explosion caused by the bombing from Venetian forces led by Francesco Morosini who are besieging the Ottoman Turks stationed in Athens. About 300 people die in the explosion, which showers marble fragments over nearby Turkish defenders and causes large fires that burn until the following day and consume many homes.
1772: The soon-to-be state of New Jersey passes the first law in the U.S. to license medical practioners, except those who do not charge for their services, or whose activity is bleeding patients or pulling teeth.
1774: Environmentalist and pioneer Johnny Appleseed is born under the birth name Jonathan Chapman in Leominster, Mass. Chapman, who would become an American legend while he was still alive, introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
1789: President George Washington appoints Thomas Jefferson as the first United States secretary of state. He also appoints John Jay as the first chief justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood as the first United States postmaster general and Edmund Randolph as the first United States attorney general.
1872: The first Shriners Temple, called Mecca, is established at the New York City Masonic Hall.
1888: Writer and poet T. S. Eliot, best known for such poems as "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" and who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, is born in St. Louis.
1898: Composer George Gershwin, whose best works include the orchestral compositions "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris" as well as the opera "Porgy and Bess," is born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
1902: Levi Strauss, who founded Levi Strauss & Co., the first company to manufacture blue jeans, dies at the age of 73 in San Francisco.
1914: The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
1914: American fitness and nutritional expert Jack LaLanne, who is sometimes called "the godfather of fitness" and the "first fitness superhero," is born under the birth name Francois Henri LaLanne in San Francisco. He's seen here at right in 1960.
1918: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the bloodiest single battle in American history, begins during World War I. The battle is a part of the final Allied offensive of the war that stretched along the entire western front and would last until the Armistice on Nov. 11, 1918. The offensive would cost the Americans 117,000 casualties, the French 70,000 and the Germans 100,000. The American casualties represented 40 percent of their total battlefield losses during the war.
1948: Singer and actress Olivia Newton-John, best known for her role as Sandy in "Grease" and such songs as "Physical," "Have You Never Been Mellow" and "I Honestly Love You," is born in Cambridge, England.
1955: Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher are married in a simple, short ceremony in Grossinger, N.Y. The marriage would produce a son and a daughter, "Star Wars" actress Carrie Fisher, but end in divorce in 1959 when Fisher and Reynolds' best friend, fellow actress Elizabeth Taylor, fell in love following the death of Taylor's then-husband Mike Todd.
1959: Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall, killing 5,098 people and leaving nearly 1.6 million others homeless.
1960: In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates. Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy square off, with Nixon's campaign suffering a blow when he appears looking pale, sickly, underweight and tired after a recent hospitalization to treat a knee infection. Nixon also refused makeup, and as a result his beard stubble showed prominently on the era's black-and-white TV screens. After the debate, polls showed Kennedy moving from a slight deficit into a slight lead over Nixon.
1962: The sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies" premieres on television. The show, about a poor backwoods family transplanted to Beverly Hills, Calif., after striking oil on their land, would run for nine seasons before ending on March 23, 1971.
1964: The sitcom "Gilligan's Island," starring Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells, premieres on television. The show would last only three seasons before ending on Sept. 4, 1967, but would find new life in syndication and become a TV classic.
1969: The album "Abbey Road" by the Beatles is released in the United Kingdom. The album, which features such songs as "Come Together," "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun," would be released in the United States on Oct. 1. The album was named for the London street location of EMI Studios where the album was recorded and features the iconic image of the band crossing Abbey Road's "zebra crossing" near the studio. It was the band's last recorded album, although "Let It Be" was the last album released before the band's breakup in 1970.
1969: The sitcom "The Brady Bunch" premieres on television. The series, which revolved around a large blended family headed by by Robert Reed and Florence Henderson, would run for five seasons before ending on March 8, 1974.
1973: The Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time, flying from Washington, D.C., to Paris-Orly Airport in France in three hours and 32 minutes.
1975: "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" premieres in theaters. Although the rock musical, starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick and Richard O'Brien, tanked upon its release, it would find second life in midnight, audience participation showings that continue to this day.
1977: The experimental space shuttle Enterprise flies on its own for the first time. The prototype is attached to a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and carried to a launch height, before being jettisoned by the use of explosive bolts to glide to a landing on the runways at Edwards Air Force Base. The intention of these flights was to test the flight characteristics of the orbiter itself, on a typical approach and landing profile from orbit.
1981: Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros throws the fifth no-hitter of his career, breaking Sandy Koufax's mark while becoming only the third pitcher to throw a no-hitter in each league. He would add two more for a total of seven non-hitters in his career before retiring in 1993.
1981: Tennis player Serena Williams, who has won 30 grand slam titles and has been ranked No. 1 on five separation occasions in her career, is born in Saginaw, Mich.
1981: A prototype of the Boeing 767, a mid-size, wide-body twin-engine jet airliner, makes its maiden flight in Everett, Wash.
1984: Prince releases his song "Purple Rain" as a single. The song, which would reach No. 2 in the United States, comes from the movie and album of the same name and is widely considered one of the singer's signature hits.
1986: The comedy "Crocodile Dundee" premieres in theaters. The movie, starring Paul Hogan as the title character, proved to be a worldwide phenomenon, earning $328 million worldwide after being made on a budget of less than $10 million. It would end up being the No. 2 box office movie of the year both in the U.S. and worldwide and spawn two sequels.
1986: William H. Rehnquist is sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joins the court as an associate justice.
2003: Singer-songwriter Robert Palmer, best known for his hits "Simply Irresistible" and "Addicted to Love" and their iconic videos featuring a bevy of near-identically clad, heavily made-up female "musicians," dies from a heart attack at the age of 54 in Paris, France.
2008: Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes the first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel, completing the trip in nine minutes and seven seconds and reaching a top speed of 186 mph.
2008: Legendary actor Paul Newman, who was nominated for an Oscar eight times and won for 1986's "The Color of Money," dies from lung cancer at the age of 83 in Westport, Conn. Some of his other best known films include "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "The Hustler," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Sting" and "Slap Shot." Newman was also known for co-founding Newman's Own, a food company from which he donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity, and as an auto racing enthusiast who raced cars himself and owned his own racing team.
2009: Typhoon Ketsana hits the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, causing 700 fatalities and doing $1.09 billion in damage.
2009: Director Roman Polanski is arrested in Zurich, Switzerland, on a warrant related to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in the U.S. in the 1970s. Polanski, seen here with his wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, would be kept in jail near Zurich for two months, then put under house arrest at his home in Gstaad, Switzerland, while awaiting decision of appeals fighting extradition to America. On July 12, 2010, the Swiss would reject the U.S. request, declaring Polanski a "free man" and releasing him from custody.
