TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is September 26, the 269th day of 2015. There are 96 days left in the year.

1580 — Francis Drake brings his ship, the Golden Hind, laden with gold and spices into Plymouth harbor, England, becoming the first captain to circumnavigate the globe.

1687 — Venetian artillery scores a direct hit on the Parthenon in Athens, used by the Turks as a powder magazine. The explosion seriously damages the temple.

1850 — France restricts press freedom.

1865 — New Zealand passes the Native Rights Act, declaring all Maori to be British subjects.

1907 — New Zealand becomes a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth.

1918 — Allies launch offensive that eventually breaks Germany’s Hindenburg Line in World War I.

1950 — United Nations forces recapture Seoul, capital of South Korea.

1954 — An estimated 1,168 people die when the ferryboat Toya Maru capsizes off Hokkaido Island, Japan.

1969 — Leftist military junta overthrows government of Bolivia.

1976 — Leaders of five black African nations decline to accept plan presented by Rhodesia’s Prime Minister Ian Smith to achieve black majority rule in Rhodesia.

1980 — The Cuban government abruptly closes Mariel Harbor, ending the freedom flotilla of Cuban refugees into the United States that began the previous April.

1984 — Britain and China initial agreement that will return Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.

2008 — The list of products caught in China’s tainted milk scandal grows to include baby cereal in Hong Kong and snack foods in Japan.

2011 — Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the worldfamous Dead Sea Scrolls go online for the first time in a project launched by Israel’s national museum and the web giant Google.

2013 – The American Oracle syndicate beats Team New Zealand 9-8 in the America’s Cup series, after coming back from an 8-1 deficit.