September 26th in History

The Parthenon

September 26 is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years). There are 96 days remaining until the end of the year. (Illustration: The Parthenon is partially destroyed, 9/26/1687.)

Today in History

  • Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind returns to England from its circumnavigation of the globe (1580)
  • The Parthenon is partially destroyed when a mortar round detonates gunpowder being stored in the ancient building (1687)
  • Ed Reulbach becomes the first (and only) baseball player to throw two shutouts in one day (1908)
  • The Battle of Meuse-Argonne results in the largest number of US dead in a single battle (1918)
  • Machine Gun Kelly gives FBI agents the nickname “G-Men” (1933)
  • The first Kennedy-Nixon debate takes place (1960)
  • Станисла́в Петро́в (Stanislav Petrov) prevents a retaliatory nuclear strike against the US by judging a missile-launch warning as false (1983)
  • The UK agrees to hand over Hong Kong to the Chinese (1984)
  • Yves Rossy crosses the English Channel using a winged jet pack (2008)

Birthdays

  • Johnny Appleseed, nurseryman (1774)
  • Ива́н Па́вло (Ivan Pavlov), bell ringer (1849 — O.S. September 14)
  • Winsor McCay, rarebit fiend (1867)
  • T.S. Eliot, old possum (1888)
  • Martin Heidegger, philosopher (1889)
  • George Gershwin, blue rhapsodist (1898)
  • George Raft, movie gangster (1901)
  • Anthony Blunt, Cambridge Five spy (1907)
  • Jack LaLanne, godfather of fitness (1914)
  • Manmohan Singh, Indian prime minister (1932)
  • Donna Douglas, Beverly hillbilly (1933)
  • Kent McCord, TV cop (1942)
  • Bryan Ferry, Roxy musician (1945)
  • Andrea Dworkin, feminist (1946)
  • Louise Simonson, comic book writer (1946)
  • Christine Todd Whitman, politician (1946)
  • Olivia Newton-John, Grease queen (1948)
  • Linda Hamilton, Terminator mom (1956)
  • Melissa Sue Anderson, Little House resident (1962)
  • Sheri Moon Zombie, aptly named scream queen (1970)
  • Serena Williams, tennis player (1981)

Deaths

  • Daniel Boone, frontiersman (1820)
  • August Ferdinand Möbius, stripper (1868)
  • Levi Strauss, blue jean maker (1902)
  • Lafcadio Hearn, writer (1904)
  • Bessie Smith, empress of the blues (1937)
  • Béla Bartók, composer (1945)
  • William Strunk, Jr., style guider (1946)
  • Hugh Lofting, Doctor Doolittle chronicler (1947)
  • George Santayana, philosopher (1952)
  • Billy Vaughn, big band leader (1991)
  • Betty Carter, jazz singer (1998)
  • Richard Mulligan, Soap star (2000)
  • Robert Palmer, simply irresistible (2003)
  • Byron Nelson, golfer (2006)
  • Paul Newman, food manufacturer (2008)
  • Gloria Stuart, actress (2010)

Holidays and Celebrations

  • Feast of Cosmas and Damian
  • Ecuadorian Day of the National Flag
  • European Day of Languages
  • Yemen Revolution Day
  • National Corned Beef Hash Day

(*O.S., or Old Style, when used, refers to the fact that Russia did not convert from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until 1918.)