Today’s highlights

On Sept. 26, 1960, the first-ever debate between presidential nominees took place as Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon faced off before a national TV audience from Chicago.

On this date

1777: British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.

1954: The Japanese commercial ferry Toya Maru sank during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, claiming more than 1,150 lives.

1986: William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.

1990: The Motion Picture Association of America announced it had created a new rating, NC-17, to replace the X rating.

1991: Four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Arizona, called Biosphere 2; they emerged from Biosphere 2 on this date in 1993.

2000: Thousands of anti-globalization protesters clashed with police during demonstrations against an International Monetary Fund/World Bank summit in Prague.

2020: President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, to the Supreme Court, to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Barrett would be confirmed the following month.)

Today’s birthdays

Country singer David Frizzell is 83. Television host Anne Robinson is 80. Actor Linda Hamilton is 68. Actor Melissa Sue Anderson is 62. Singer Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men) is 52. Tennis player Serena Williams is 43. Singer-actor Christina Milian (MIHL’-ee-ahn) is 43. Actor Zoe Perry is 41.