On this day, Sept. 26
1777 British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
1954 The Japanese commercial ferry Toya Maru sank during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, claiming more than 1,150 lives.
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.
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.
1990 The Motion Picture Association of America announced it had created a new rating, NC-17, to replace the X rating.
1991 Four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Ariz., called Biosphere 2. They emerged from Biosphere on this date in 1993.
2005 Army Pfc. Lynndie England was convicted by a military jury in Fort Hood, Texas, on six of seven counts stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
2019 As Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh prepared for a public Senate hearing on an allegation from a California professor that Justice Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were teens, a third accusation of sexual misconduct came from a woman who said she saw Justice Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature.”
2020 President Donald Trump nominated judge Amy Coney Barrett, a former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, to the Supreme Court, to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Justice Barrett would be confirmed the following month.)
2022 NASA spacecraft Dart rammed an asteroid at blistering speed in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.
Today’s birthdays: Former baseball All-Star Bobby Shantz, 98. Actor Kent McCord, 81. Television host Anne Robinson, 79. Singer Bryan Ferry, 78. Actor Mary Beth Hurt, 77. Actor James Keane, 71. Actor Linda Hamilton, 67. Actor Melissa Sue Anderson, 61. Actor Patrick Bristow, 61. TV personality Jillian Barberie, 57. Actor Jim Caviezel, 55. Actor Tricia O’Kelley, 55. Actor Ben Shenkman, 55. Actor Melanie Paxson, 51. Jazz musician Nicholas Payton, 50. Actor Mark Famiglietti, 44. Singer-actor Christina Milian, 42. Tennis player Serena Williams, 42. Actor Zoe Perry, 40. Singer/songwriter Ant Clemons, 32.