12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for September 26, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1580 – Sir Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, completing the first English circumnavigation of the globe.
- 1687 – A Venetian mortar strike detonates Ottoman gunpowder stored in the Parthenon, devastating the temple.
- 1789 – George Washington appoints Thomas Jefferson as the first U.S. Secretary of State and Edmund Randolph as Attorney General.
- 1907 – New Zealand becomes a Dominion within the British Empire; “Dominion Day” is marked across the country.
- 1959 – Super Typhoon Vera (“Isewan Typhoon”) strikes Japan, the country’s deadliest typhoon on record.
- 1960 – Kennedy and Nixon face off in the first televised U.S. presidential debate.
- 1969 – The Beatles release Abbey Road, their final recorded album.
- 1991 – Eight “Biospherians” are sealed inside Arizona’s Biosphere 2 for a two-year closed-ecosystem experiment.
- 2002 – Senegalese ferry MV Le Joola capsizes off The Gambia; over 1,800 lives are lost.
- 2021 – Germany holds its federal election that leads to the Scholz government.
- 2022 – Undersea explosions cripple the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
- 2022 – NASA’s DART spacecraft intentionally impacts asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, shortening its orbital period.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1945 – Bryan Ferry, English singer-songwriter, frontman of Roxy Music (80).
- 1949 – Jane Smiley, American novelist, Pulitzer Prize for A Thousand Acres (76).
- 1956 – Linda Hamilton, American actress, Sarah Connor in The Terminator (69).
- 1968 – Jim Caviezel, American actor, The Passion of the Christ; Person of Interest (57).
- 1972 – Beto O’Rourke, American politician, former U.S. Representative (53).
- 1981 – Serena Williams, American tennis legend, 23-time major singles champion (44).
- 1981 – Christina Milian, American singer and actress (44).
Today’s Deaths:
- 1820 – Daniel Boone, American frontiersman and explorer (85).
- 1902 – Levi Strauss, German-American businessman, founder of Levi Strauss & Co. (73).
- 1945 – Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist (64).
- 1973 – Anna Magnani, Italian actress, Oscar winner for The Rose Tattoo (65).
- 2003 – Robert Palmer, English singer (Addicted to Love) (54).
- 2006 – Byron Nelson, American golf great, “Lord Byron” (94).
- 2008 – Paul Newman, American actor and philanthropist (83).
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