On This Day:
Thursday September 26, 2013 This is the 269th day of the year, with 96 days remaining in 2013. Fact of the Day: apes and monkeys Apes are among the most intelligent creatures on earth. They have large brains and long arms, fingers, and toes. In body shape and intelligence, these creatures resemble human beings and they belong to the same family (Hominidae) in the animal kingdom. Closely related to apes are monkeys, with a body plan similar to that of apes, but smaller. Both apes and monkeys have front limbs like arms, with hands that can grasp strongly and manipulate delicately. Apes are tailless, have an appendix, and have more complex brains than monkeys, which have tails and narrower chests than apes. The gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo, and orangutan are called great apes in recognition of their comparatively large size and humanlike features; the gibbons are called lesser apes. Unlike the great apes, most monkeys do not appear to be very good at learning from each others' experience; individuals more or less have to learn new behaviors for themselves.
Holidays Sri Lanka: Bandaranaike Day.
Yemen: Revolution Day.
Khmer Republic: Ceremony of the Dead.
Ethiopia: Feast of the Finding of the True Cross/Maskal.
Events 1580 - Sir Francis Drake returned to Plymouth, England, in the ship Golden Hind, having become the first British navigator to have circumnavigated the globe.
1687 - The Parthenon was destroyed in the war between Turks and the Venetians.
1777 - British troops occupied Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. Sir William Howe had just defeated George Washington at the Battle of Brandywine and his forces easily captured the undefended capital.
1789 - Thomas Jefferson was appointed the first Secretary of State in the United States.
1815 - The Act of the Holy Alliance was signed by the Czar of Russia, Emperor of Austro-Hungary, and the King of Prussia -- in the name of Christianity.
1829 - Scotland Yard, British criminal investigation organization, was formed.
1901 - Leon Czolgosz, who murdered President William McKinley, was sentenced to death.
1913 - The first boat was raised in the Panama Canal locks.
1914 - Federal Trade Commission was established to foster competition in business and prevent monopolies.
1918 - The last major battle of World War I began when French and American troops attack German holdings in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. The battle ended in the eleventh hour of November 11.
1941 - U.S. Army established the Military Police Corps.
1950 - United Nations troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.
1953 - Sugar rationing in Great Britain was ended after almost 14 years.
1955 - The New York Stock Exchange suffered a $44 million loss.
1957 - The musical "West Side Story," written by Leonard Bernstein, opened on Broadway.
1960 - The first televised presidential debate took place between Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy (in Chicago).
1962 - "The Beverly Hillbillies" premiered on television.
1964 - "Gilligan's Island" debuted on TV.
1967 - Hanoi rejected a U.S. peace proposal for the Vietnam War.
1969 - "The Brady Bunch" premiered on TV.
1969 - The Beatles last album, "Abbey Road," was released.
1972 - Richard M. Nixon met with Emperor Hirohito in Anchorage, Alaska, the first-ever meeting of a U.S. President and a Japanese monarch.
1984 - Great Britain formally agreed to honor the expiration of its 99-year lease on the island of Hong Kong. The agreement was signed in Peking.
1986 - William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th Chief Justice and Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
1990 - Motion Picture Association of America instituted the NC-17 rating.
1991 - Four men and four women began a two-year stay in the sealed Biosphere Two in Oracle, Arizona, for science research.
1996 - U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid returned to Earth in the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis, after six months in orbit aboard the Russian space station Mir. It set an endurance record for an American and a woman in space.
1997 - Indonesian Airbus A-300 crashed while approaching Medan Airport in north Sumatra, killing all 234 people aboard.
2002 - A state-run Senegalese ferry capsized in the Atlantic Ocean, killing more than 1800 people.
Births 1774 - Johnny Appleseed (Jonathan Chapman), American medicine man and planter.
1888 - T.S. Eliot, American Nobel Prize-winning poet.
1889 - Martin Heidegger, German existentialist philosopher.
1895 - George Raft (Ranft), American actor.
1898 - George Gershwin, American composer.
1914 - Jack LaLanne, American exercise and fitness guru.
1926 - Julie London (Peck), American singer.
1948 - Olivia Newton-John, Australian singer and actress.
1962 - Melissa Sue Anderson, American actress.
Deaths 1820 - Legendary American frontiersman Daniel Boone.
1915 - James Keir Hardie, union organizer, who in 1888 founded the Scottish Labour Party.
1937 - Bessie Smith, American blues singer.
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