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Made for the 250thOn this day › September 26
What happened on September 26 in American history
September 26 is the 269th day of the year (the 270th in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 7 stories from September 26 spanning 1777 to 1983. Among them: in 1777, Howe walks into Philadelphia; Congress is already gone; and in 1789, Washington names Jefferson to head a department that does not yet exist in practice.
1777Member story · 1776 Club
Howe walks into Philadelphia; Congress is already gone
Washington, outmaneuvered after Brandywine and Paoli, cannot stop the British from taking the rebel capital.
1789
Washington names Jefferson to head a department that does not yet exist in practice
The Virginia planter fresh off five years in Paris becomes the nation's first Secretary of State.
1914Member story · 1776 Club
Wilson signs the Federal Trade Commission into existence
A new agency gets civil power to police unfair competition, two and a half years after a freshman Oklahoma congressman first proposed it.
1918
2,711 guns open fire before dawn as America's biggest offensive begins
The barrage alone cost about a million dollars a minute, before a single soldier crossed the wire.
1950Member story · 1776 Club
Seoul falls back into UN hands eleven days after Inchon
The 1st Marine Division fights its way up from Yongdungp'o and plants the flag over the South Korean capital.
1960Member story · 1776 Club
Kennedy and Nixon debate on live television for the first time
Sixty-six million Americans watch from Chicago, and Nixon's camera does him no favors.
1983
A Soviet screen shows five U.S. missiles inbound; the duty officer calls it a glitch
Stanislav Petrov had no proof the alarm was false, only a hunch that a real attack would look different.
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