Kennedy and Nixon square off in first televised presidential debate

Born on This Day

George Gershwin

1898 - 1937

Trailblazing composer who blended classical and jazz elements in works like “Porgy and Bess” and “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Olivia Newton-John

1948 - 2022

British-Australian singer and Grease star hopelessly devoted to hits like “I Honestly Love You” and “Physical.”

Serena Williams

1981 -

American tennis legend who revolutionized the sport with her powerful athleticism and won 23 Grand Slam titles.

George GershwinBettmann Archive

Olivia Newton-JohnGetty Images

Serena WilliamsWireImage

1983

SEP26

The U.S. loses the America’s Cup to a foreign team for the first time since the yacht race’s founding in 1851. The winner is Australia II, which beats its rival by 41 seconds.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on September 26th

Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe

English seaman Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England, in the Golden Hind, becoming the first British navigator to sail the earth. On December 13, 1577, Drake set out from England with five ships on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World. After crossing the Atlantic, Drake abandoned two […]

The famous frontiersman Daniel Boone dies in Missouri

On September 26, 1820 the pioneering frontiersman Daniel Boone dies quietly in his sleep at his son’s home near present-day Defiance, Missouri. The indefatigable voyager was 86. Boone was born in 1734 to Quaker parents living in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Following a squabble with the Pennsylvania Quakers, Boone’s family decided to head south and west, […]

T.S. Eliot is born

Poet T.S. Eliot is born in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 26, 1888. Eliot’s distinguished family tree included an ancestor who arrived in Boston in 1670 and another who founded Washington University in St. Louis. Eliot’s father was a businessman, and his mother was involved in local charities. Eliot took an undergraduate degree at Harvard, […]

Meuse-Argonne offensive opens

At 5:30 on the morning of September 26, 1918, after a six-hour-long bombardment over the previous night, more than 700 Allied tanks, followed closely by infantry troops, advance against German positions in the Argonne Forest and along the Meuse River. Building on the success of earlier Allied offensives at Amiens and Albert during the summer […]

First U.S. soldier killed during Vietnam’s August Revolution

Lt. Col. Peter Dewey, a U.S. Army officer with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Vietnam, is shot and killed in Saigon. Dewey was the head of a seven-man team sent to Vietnam to search for missing American pilots and to gather information on the situation in the country after the surrender of the […]

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“West Side Story” opens on Broadway

On September 26, 1957, West Side Story, composed by Leonard Bernstein, opens at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. For the groundbreaking musical, Bernstein provided a propulsive and rhapsodic score that many celebrate as his greatest achievement as a composer. However, even without the triumph of West Side Story, Bernstein’s place in musical history was […]

“The Brady Bunch” premieres

On September 26, 1969, American television audiences hear the soon-to-be-famous opening lyrics “Here’s the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls…” as “The Brady Bunch,” a sitcom that will become an icon of American pop culture, airs for the first time. The show was panned by critics and, according […]

4th Oriole pitcher wins 20th game in a single season

On September 26, 1971, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer wins his 20th game of the year, becoming the fourth Orioles pitcher to win 20 games in the 1971 season. This made the 1971 Orioles pitching staff the first since that of the 1920 Chicago White Sox to field four 20-game winners. The Orioles began the […]

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” debuts in U.S. theaters

It flopped before becoming an audience-participation classic.

Lake Placid's Olympic Village reopens as federal prison

Congress required that athletes' dorms be repurposed for inmates.

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Shannon Lucid returns to Earth

U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid returns to Earth in the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis following six months in orbit aboard the Russian space station Mir. On March 23, 1996, Lucid transferred to Mir from the same space shuttle for a planned five-month stay. A biochemist, Lucid shared Mir with Russian cosmonauts Yuri Onufriyenko and Yuri Usachev […]

IRA officially disarms

Two months after announcing its intention to disarm, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) gives up its weapons in front of independent weapons inspectors. The decommissioning of the group’s substantial arsenal took place in secret locations in the Republic of Ireland. One Protestant and one Catholic priest as well as officials from Finland and the United […]

Mistrial declared in Phil Spector murder case

Music producer Phil Spector’s trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson ends in a mistrial when the jury cannot come to a unanimous verdict. On February 3, 2003, police responded to a 911 call and found the 40-year-old Clarkson dead of a gunshot wound to the mouth in the foyer of Spector’s mansion in […]

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