Today in history
Today is Monday, Sept. 26, the 270th day of 2016. There are 96 days left in the year.
Highlight in history
On Sept. 26, 1789, Thomas Jefferson was confirmed by the Senate to be the first United States secretary of state; John Jay, the first chief justice; Edmund Randolph, the first attorney general.
On this date
In 1777, British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
In 1892, John Philip Sousa and his newly formed band performed publicly for the first time at the Stillman Music Hall in Plainfield, New Jersey.
In 1914, the Federal Trade Commission was established.
In 1937, the radio drama “The Shadow,” starring Orson Welles, premiered on the Mutual Broadcasting System.
In 1945, Hungarian-born composer Bela Bartok, 64, died in New York City.
In 1957, the musical play “West Side Story” opened on Broadway.
In 1960, the first-ever debate between presidential nominees took place as Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon faced off before a national TV audience from Chicago.
In 1981, the twin-engine Boeing 767 made its official debut in Everett, Washington.
In 1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
In 1991, four men and four women began a twoyear stay inside a sealedoff structure in Oracle, Arizona, called Biosphere 2. (They emerged from Biosphere on this date in 1993.)
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a bill ensuring two-day hospital stays for new mothers and their babies. Richard Allen Davis, the killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, was formally sentenced to death in San Jose, California.
In 2014, 43 students from a rural teachers college in Guerrero state in Mexico who had commandeered buses to attend a rally in Mexico City were detained by police in the city of Iguala and turned over to a crime gang; their fate remains unknown.
Ten years ago: A declassified version of a government intelligence report ordered released by President George W. Bush said the war in Iraq had become a “cause celebre” for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that was likely to get worse before it got better. Former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced by a federal judge in Houston to six years in prison for his role in the fallen energy company’s bankruptcy (Fastow was released in Dec. 2011). Iva Toguri D’Aquino, who was convicted and later pardoned for being World War II propagandist “Tokyo Rose,” died in Chicago at age 90. World Golf Hall of Famer Byron Nelson died in Roanoke, Texas, at age 94.
Five years ago: Ending weeks of political brinkmanship, Congress advanced legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown. President Barack Obama appeared at a town hall meeting in Mountain View, California, hosted by the social networking company LinkedIn; the president plugged his jobs agenda in fielding questions on the employment picture, education, Medicare and Social Security.
One year ago: Visiting Philadelphia on the final leg of his six-day U.S. trip, Pope Francis extolled America’s founding ideals of liberty and equality while warning that religious freedom was under threat around the globe.