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The events of September 26 · Read the full edition → · More from September 26 →
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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.

Presidential candidates had never faced each other on television before. On September 26, 1960, Richard Nixon and John Kennedy met at CBS's WBBM-TV studios in Chicago for the first televised presidential debate, moderated by Howard K. Smith with a panel of four network correspondents. Nixon, recovering from illness and refusing television makeup, appeared pale and underweight with a visible five o'clock shadow; his gray suit blended into the studio background. Kennedy sat still and composed under the lights. Radio listeners scored the substance a draw, but the television audience saw something else entirely…

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More from September 26
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.
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.
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.
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Washington, outmaneuvered after Brandywine and Paoli, cannot stop the British from taking the rebel capital.
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Read the full September 26 edition →Everything that happened on September 26 →
More from Cold War America
1950

Truman orders air and sea forces to Korea; the UN backs a unified command under American leadership

Seoul fell yesterday, and the Security Council voted hours ago, but the question in Washington was never whether to act, only how fast.
1950

American fighters meet North Korean Yaks above Suwon; three shot down, none lost

F-82s and F-80Cs scrambled to cover civilian evacuation flights out of Seoul, two days after North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel.
1950

Gaetjens heads it in; the US beats England, 1–0, in Belo Horizonte

Borghi shuts out the sport's reigning aristocracy; the American squad includes a hearse driver, a schoolteacher, and men who trained together exactly once.
1956

Eisenhower signs the highway act; 41,000 miles of interstate and $25 billion set in motion

The president who crossed the country on rutted Army roads in 1919 authorizes the largest public works project the nation has yet attempted.
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