Today 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.

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 two-year stay inside a sealed-off 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.

“The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do.” — Booker T. Washington, American educator and author (1856-1915).