Today is Thursday, Sept. 26, the 269th day of 2019. There are 96 days left in the year.
Today’s 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 1907, New Zealand went from being a colony to a dominion within the British Empire.
In 1955, following word that President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack, the New York Stock Exchange saw its worst price decline since 1929.
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 1964, the situation comedy “Gilligan’s Island” premiered on CBS-TV.
In 1977, Sir Freddie Laker began his cut-rate “Skytrain” service from London to New York. (The carrier went out of business in 1982.)
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 1990, the Motion Picture Association of America announced it had created a new rating, NC-17, to replace the X rating.
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 Clinton signed a bill ensuring two-day hospital stays for new mothers and their babies.
In 2003, President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin (POO’-tihn) opened a two-day summit at Camp David.
Ten years ago: Film director Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss police on an international warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. (Polanski had fled the U.S. in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. Polanski spent two months in a Swiss jail and served seven months of house arrest before Switzerland’s government decided against extraditing him to the United States.) Pope Benedict XVI began a three-day pilgrimage to the Czech Republic.
Five years ago: Fire broke out in the basement of a suburban Chicago air traffic control center, temporarily halting operations at O’Hare and Midway airports; an FAA contract employee, Brian Howard, was accused of cutting cables and setting the fire before slashing his throat. (Howard pleaded guilty to willfully destroying an air navigation facility and using fire to commit a felony, and was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.) American warplanes and drones hit Islamic State group targets in Syria and Iraq as the U.S.-led coalition expanded to include Britain, Denmark and Belgium. Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton gave birth in New York to her first child, a daughter named Charlotte.
One year ago: As Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh prepared for a public Senate hearing on an allegation from a California professor that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were teens, a third accusation of sexual misconduct came from a woman who said she saw Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature.” President Donald Trump said his view of sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men, including his Supreme Court nominee, was affected by “a lot of false charges” that he said had been made against him by women he said had been “paid a lot of money” to make those
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