Today in History, 9/26

46 BC: Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix in accordance with a vow he made at the battle of Pharsalus.
1181: Saint Francis of Assisi is born.1580: Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe.
1687: The Parthenon in Athens is partially destroyed after an explosion caused by the bombing from Venetian forces led by Morosini who were besieging the Ottoman Turks stationed in Athens.1687: The city council of Amsterdam votes to support William of Orange's invasion of England, which became the Glorious Revolution.
1774: Johnny Appleseed is born.1777: British troops occupy Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
1789: Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood is appointed the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph is appointed the first United States Attorney General.
1867: Winsor McCay is born. He did the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland and the early cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur.

1888: T.S. Eliot is born. When I was in college I did a number of just awful dramatic recitations of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land.1908: Ed Reulbach became the first and only pitcher to throw two shutouts in one day against the Brooklyn Dodgers.1914: The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
1914: Jack LaLanne, fitness guru is born.1926: Julie London is born. She played Dixie McCall, RN on Emergency!1927: Robert Cade is born. He invented Gatorade! I always thought it was a natural byproduct of petroleum refining.
1932: Richard Herd is born. He played John the head lizard in the V saga and Tom Paris's aloof dad on Star Trek: Voyager, along with a ton of other roles.

I love those sunglasses!

1933: Donna Douglas is born. She played Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies.

1934: The steamship RMS Queen Mary is launched.1942: Kent McCord is born. He is best known as Officer Jim Reed on Adam-12, but he was also in Galactica: 1980, Airplane II, The Sequel and Return of the Living Dead III. He is currently Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild. (Melissa Gilbert is President!)

1944: Anne Robinson is born. She's that mean lady who hosts The Weakest Link.1946: Andrea Dworkin, feminist is born.1948: Olivia Newton John is born. Here she is in Xanadu.

1956: Linda Hamilton is born. Presumably, this is also the birthday of her twin sister who played Sarah Connor in a dream sequence in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.1957: West Side Story premieres on Broadway.
1960: In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

1963: Lysette Anthony is born. She played Princess Lyssa in the 80's cornball classic Krull.

1969: The Beatles release Abbey Road. Paul's bare feet on the album cover are a clue that he is dead.1973: The Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.1980: The Cuban government closes Mariel Harbor, ending the freedom flotilla of refugees that began the previous April.
1981: Serena Williams is born.1983: Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a global thermonuclear war by defying orders and identifying an incoming threat as a false alarm.
Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.