Return to home1328 Sep 26,
Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (b.1263), a Sunni Islamic scholar
born in Harran, located in what is now Turkey, died. He lived in
Damascus during the troubled times of the Mongol invasions. As a
member of the school founded by Ibn Hanbal, he sought the return of
Islam to its sources: the Qur'an and the Sunnah. He had adopted the
notion of takfir, denouncing as apostates Muslims whom he deemed
wayward, a crime punishable by death.
p.30)(Econ, 7/25/15, p.69) (http://tinyurl.com/pfxhrq3)
1342 Sep 26, John I, ruler of
1396 Sep 26, Sultan Bajezid I
beheaded several hundred crusaders.
1580 Sep 26, Francis Drake
returned to Plymouth, England, at the end of his voyage to
circumvent the globe. Drake was knighted and awarded a prize of 10
thousand pounds. His crew of 63 split a purse of 8 thousand pounds.
(TL-MB, p.23)(HN, 9/26/99)(ON, 7/03, p.8)
1669 Sep 26, The island of
Crete fell to the Ottoman Turks after 465 years as a colony of
(WSJ, 7/21/08, p.A11)
1687 Sep 26, The Venetian army
attacked the Acropolis in Athens while trying to eject Turks.
Marauding Venetians sent a mortar through a gable window of the
Parthenon and ignited a Turkish store of gunpowder. This damaged the
northern colonnade of the Parthenon. The Parthenon was destroyed in
the war between Turks and Venetians.
(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.A26)(MC, 9/26/01)
1729 Sep 26, Moses Mendelssohn,
German philosopher, critic, Bible translator, was born. [see Sep 6]
1763 Sep 26, English poet John
Byrom (b.1692) died. The words "Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" made
their first appearance in print in "one of the most celebrated and
most frequently quoted epigrams," satirizing the disagreements
between George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Battista Bononcini,
written by John Byrom. A nursery rhyme published in 1805 included
the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee as did Lewis Carroll’s
“Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There"
1772 Sep 26, New Jersey passed
a bill requiring a license to practice medicine.
1774 Sep 26, John Chapman
(d.1845), later known as Johnny Appleseed, was born in
Massachusetts. A pioneer agriculturalist of early America,
Chapman began his trek in 1797, collecting apple seedlings from
western Pennsylvania and establishing apple nurseries around the
early American frontier. Chapman was a Swedenborgian missionary, a
land speculator and an eccentric dresser (he hated shoes and seldom
wore them. He planted orchards across western Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and Indiana from seed.
p.42)(ON, 4/09, p.10)
1777 Sep 26, The British army
launched a major offensive during the American Revolution, capturing
Philadelphia. [see Sep 25]
1783 Sep 26, Jane Taylor,
children's writer, was born. She was best known as the author of
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
1786 Sep 26, France and Britain
signed a trade agreement in London.
1789 Sep 26, Thomas Jefferson
was appointed America's first Secretary of State; John Jay the first
chief justice of the United States; Samuel Osgood the first
Postmaster-General; and Edmund Jennings Randolph the first Attorney
1791 Sep 26, J.L.A. Theodore
Gericault, French painter, was born.
1815 Sep 26, Russia, Prussia
and Austria signed a Holy Alliance. "Justice, charity and peace"
were to be the precepts that guided the Holy Alliance as envisioned
by Czar Alexander I of Russia. The alliance of Russia, Austria and
Prussia was formed after the downfall of Napoleon and later all
European rulers signed the agreement except the prince regent of
Great Britain, the pope and the sultan of Turkey. With no specific
aims beyond mutual assistance, the provisions of the Holy Alliance
were so vague that it had little effect on European diplomacy.
Metternich quietly replaced the entire alliance by the purely
political alliance of 20 November, 1815, between Austria, Prussia,
Russia and England.
1820 Sep 26, The legendary
frontiersman Daniel Boone died quietly at the Defiance, Mo., home of
his son Nathan, at age 85.
1826 Sep 26, The Persian
cavalry was routed by the Russians at the Battle of Ganja in the
1835 Sep 26, Gaetano
Donizetti's opera "Lucia di Lammermoor," premiered in Naples.
1864 Sep 26, General Nathan
Bedford Forrest and his men assaulted a Federal garrison near
1887 Sep 26, Barnes Wallis,
British aeronautical engineer, was born. He invented the "Bouncing
Bombs" that destroyed German dams during World War II.
1888 Sep 26, T.S. Eliot
(d.1976), American-Anglo poet, critic, and dramatist, was born. His
poetry included "The Waste Land" and "Ash Wednesday." "Those who say
they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public
taste and end by debauching it."
(AP, 3/28/99)(HN, 9/26/99)
1889 Sep 26, Martin Heidegger,
existentialist philosopher and writer, was born in Germany. He wrote
"Being and Time," and criticized the tyranny of modern technology
(WUD, 1994, p.657)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A12)(MC,
1891 Sep 26, Charles Munch
(d.1968), Alsatian conductor (French Legion D'Honeur), was born in
(WUD, 1994 p.941)(MC, 9/26/01)
1892 Sep 26, John Philip Sousa
and his newly formed band performed publicly for the first time, at
the Stillman Music Hall in Plainfield, N.J.
1892 Sep 26, The Diamond Match
Co. patented book matches. [see Sep 27]
1897 Sep 26, Pope Paul VI
(Giovanni Battista Montini), the 262nd pope of the Roman Catholic
Church, was born.
1898 Sep 26, George Gershwin,
American composer, was born as Jacob Gershvin in Brooklyn, N.Y. He
wrote many popular songs for musicals, along with his brother Ira,
and is best known for "I Got Rhythm" and "Rhapsody in Blue." His
work included "An American in Paris." As Gershwin was putting
together his famous "Rhapsody in Blue" in 1924, jazz was gaining
widespread popularity. But Gershwin sought to do something new:
"Jazz, they said, had to be in strict time. It had to cling to dance
rhythms. I resolved to kill that misconception with one sturdy
blow." Audiences loved it. He and his brother Ira collaborated in
1934 to create "Porgy and Bess," an opera that explored
African-American culture. Many of its songs have become ingrained in
American popular culture. Just a few years later, when he was only
38, Gershwin died of a brain tumor.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, DB p.37)(AP, 9/26/98)(HNPD,
1901 Sep 26, Leon Czolgosz, who
murdered President William McKinley, was sentenced to death.
1902 Sep 26, Umberto "Albert"
Anastasia, US gangster (fond of being shaved), was born.
1904 Sep 26, GB Shaw's "How He
Lied to Her Husband," premiered in NYC.
1904 Sep 26, Lafcadio Hearn
(b.1850), Greece-born, Irish-American travel writer, died in Japan.
He moved to Japan in 1890 and is especially well-known for his
collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as “Kwaidan:
Stories and Studies of Strange Things" (1904). In 2009 Christopher
Benfey edited “Lafcadio Hearn: American Writings."
1907 Sep 26, Anthony F. Blunt,
British historian and spy for USSR, was born.
1907 Sep 26, New Zealand went
from being a colony to a dominion within the British Empire.
1908 Sep 26, An ad for the
Edison Phonograph appeared in "The Saturday Evening Post". The
phonograph offered buyers free records by both the Democratic and
Republican US presidential candidates.
1913 Sep 26, Ernst Schnabel,
German sailor and dramatist (Anne Frank), was born.
1913 Sep 26, The first boat was
raised in the locks of the Panama Canal.
1914 Sep 26, Jack LaLanne,
fitness guru, was born.
1914 Sep 26, The Federal Trade
Commission was established to regulate interstate commerce and
foster competition by preventing monopolies in business.
(AP, 9/26/97)(HN, 9/26/99)
1916 Sep 26, A Bishop spoke
against Catholics joining trade unions
1918 Sep 26, The Meuse-Argonne
offensive against the Germans began during World War I.
1918 Sep 26, German Ace Ernst
Udet shot down two Allied planes, bringing his total for the war up
1922 Sep 26, Thomas Watson
(b.1856) Populist Georgia state politician, attorney, newspaper
editor, died in Washington, DC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_E._Watson)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.34)
1923 Sep 26, Sir Aubrey Herbert
(b.1880), Englishman, died. He worked for Albania’s independence and
was twice offered the throne of Albania. He authored the WW 1
journal “Mons, Anzac & Kut."
1925 Sep 26, The Italian
submarine "Sebastiano Veniero" was lost off Sicily with 54 dead.
1930 Sep 26, Fritz Wunderlich,
tenor (Stuttgart 1955-58), was born in Kusel, Germany.
1934 Sep 26, The British liner
Queen Mary was launched. [see May 27, 1936]
1937 Sep 26, Bessie Smith,
known as the ‘Empress of the Blues,’ died in a car crash on Highway
61 near Clarksdale, Mississippi.
(HN, 9/26/00)(HT, 5/97, p.40)
1938 Sep 26, Hitler issued his
ultimatum to Czech government, demanding Sudetenland.
1940 Sep 26, During the London
Blitz, the underground Cabinet War Room suffered a hit when a bomb
exploded on the Clive Steps.
1940 Sep 26, W.H. Davies
(b.1871), a Welsh poet, died in England. He had lived the life of a
hobo in America and authored “Autobiography of a Supertramp" (1908).
1940 Sep 26, Japanese troops
attacked French Indochina (Vietnam).
1941 Sep 26, The U.S. Army
established the Military Police Corps.
1943 Sep 26, The Germans placed
an extortion on the Jews of Rome with an order to produce 50 kg of
gold within 2 days or face massive deportations. Pope Pius XII
offered to loan the Jewish community 15 kg of gold with interest and
with repayment due within 4 years after the war. Rome’s Jews and
citizens came up with sufficient gold to make the Pope’s offer
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)
1945 Sep 26, Bryan Ferry,
singer in group Roxy Music and solo, was born.
1945 Sep 26, Bela Bartok
(b.1881), Hungarian pianist and composer, died at age 64.
1948 Sep 26, Olivia Newton-John
singer and actress, was born. (You're the One that I Want, If Not
for You, Let Me Be There, I Honestly Love You, Have You Never Been
Mellow, Please Mr. Please, Physical, Magic; actress: Grease, Xanadu,
Two of a Kind).
1949 Sep 26, Jane Smiley,
novelist, was born. Her work included "A Thousand Acres, Moo."
1950 Sep 26, The California
state legislature passed a bill requiring state employees to sign a
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)
1950 Sep 26, General Douglas
MacArthur's American X Corps, fresh from the Inchon landing, linked
up with the U.S. Eighth Army after its breakout from the Pusan
Perimeter. United Nations troops recaptured the South Korean capital
of Seoul from the North Koreans. [see Sep 27]
(AP, 9/26/97)(HN, 9/26/99)
1950 Sep 26, Because of forest
fire in British Columbia a blue moon appeared in England.
1950 Sep 26, Indonesia was
admitted to the UN.
1951 Sep 26, Prof. Youngblood
demonstrated an artificial heart in Paris.
1952 Sep 26, George Santayana
(88), US philosopher and poet (Last Puritan), died in Italy. He was
a student and professor at Harvard but left the US in 1912. His work
includes: "The Life of Reason" and "Realms of Being;" a novel "The
Last Puritan;" and autobiography "Persons and Places." In 2000
Irving Singer authored "George Santayana: Literary Philosopher."
(WSJ, 11/7/00, p.A24)(AP, 9/26/06)
1953 Sep 26, US and Spain
signed a defense treaty with 4 US bases to be set in Spain.
1953 Sep 26, Polish government
fired and imprisoned Cardinal Wyszynski.
1954 Sep 26, Ronald Reagan made
his 1st appearance as host of the "General Electric Theater," and
continued on for 8 years.
(SSFC, 6/6/04, A14)
1954 Sep 26, A typhoon hit
Japan. 5 ferryboats sank killing about 1,600. The Japanese ferry
boat Toya Maru sank in the Strait of Tsugaru and 1172 died.
1955 Sep 26, The New York Stock
Exchange suffered $44 million loss, the heaviest one-day loss since
1929 following word that Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower had suffered a
1956 Sep 26, Linda Hamilton
actress, was born. (Terminator series, Beauty and the Beast,
Children of the Corn).
1956 Sep 26, Lucien Febvre,
French historian (Un Destin, Martin Luther), died at 78.
1957 Sep 26, The musical "West
Side Story" by Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins opened on
Broadway and ran for 732 performances. The loose adaptation of
William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" produced several hit songs,
including "Maria" and "Tonight". The story was by Arthur Laurents.
1957 Sep 26, Dag Hammarskjold
was re-elected secretary-general of UN.
1959 Sep 26, Vera, Japan, was
hit by a typhoon; about 5,000 died. [see Sep 17,27]
1960 Sep 26, Ted Williams hit
his 521st HR off Jack Fisher for his last time at bat.
1960 Sep 26, The first
televised debate between presidential candidates Vice Pres. Richard
M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy took place in Chicago. Diplomat Henry
Cabot Lodge was Nixon’s vice-presidential nominee.
(SFEM, 4/28/96, p.12)(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-6)(AP,
1960 Sep 26, Fidel Castro made
the longest speech in UN history, 4 hrs, 29 mins.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A9)
1961 Sep 26, Roger Maris hit HR
#60 off Jack Fisher, tying Babe Ruth's record.
1961 Sep 26, Nineteen-year-old
Bob Dylan made his New York singing debut at Gerde’s Folk City. [see
April 11, Sep 11]
1962 Sep 26, The cult film
"Carnival of Souls" premiered in Lawrence, Kan., where parts of it
had been filmed.
1962 Sep 26, TV comedy series
"Beverly Hillbillies" premiered on CBS. The Beverly Hillbillies,
produced by Paul Henning (1912-2005), became the top ranking network
show on television for two seasons with rankings of 36 and 39.1%.
The show ran to 1971.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.B1)(SFC,
1962 Sep 26, In North Yemen a
group of military officers led by Col. Adbullah al-Sallal and
supported by Egypt overthrew the Imam and established a republic.
Zaydi Imam al-Badr had been in power for only a week having
succeeded his father who had presided over a feudal kingdom where 80
per cent of the population lived as peasants and which was
controlled through bribery, an arbitrary and coercive tax system and
a policy of divide and rule. The Zaydis had founded a dynasty known
as the imamate in northern Yemen that ruled for some 1,000 years.
This coup was led by Colonel Abdullah al-Sallal and a pro-Nasser,
Arab nationalist group within the Yemeni military, which proclaimed
the Yemen Arab Republic.
1963 Sep 26, Lee Harvey Oswald
traveled on a Continental Trailways bus to Mexico.
1964 Sep 26, "Gilligan’s
Island," a TV tale of 7 castaways, began its 98-show run on
CBS. The show was created by Sherwood Schwartz (1916-2011).
(SFC, 5/5/03, p.B4)(SFC, 7/13/11,
1965 Sep 26, Queen Elizabeth
decorated the Beatles with the Order of the British Empire.
1967 Sep 26, Hanoi rejected a
U.S. peace proposal.
1968 Sep 26, Hawaii Five-O
premiered on CBS TV and continued to 1980. It starred Jack Lord
(d.1998 at 77) and was the longest running police show in TV
history. Its theme song was "Walk Don’t Run" by the Ventures. Lord
(born as John Joseph Patrick Ryan) was a painter off TV and his
canvasses sold privately for top dollar.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.D4)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D3)
1968 Sep 26, In Portugal Prof.
Marcello Caetano replaced Antonio Salazar as Prime Minister.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1969 Sep 26, The family comedy
series "The Brady Bunch" premiered on ABC-TV and continued to 1974.
The show was created by Sherwood Schwartz (1916-2011). Ann B. Davis
(1926-2014) played housekeeper Alice Nelson.
(AP, 9/26/99)(SFC, 7/13/11, p.C4)(SFC, 6/2/14,
1969 Sep 26, The Beatles last
album, "Abbey Road," was released in the United Kingdom. The last
hit LP for the "fab four" zoomed quickly to the #1 spot on the
charts and stayed there for 11 weeks.
9/26/99)(Beat. For., 1995, p. 58)
1972 Sep 26, Richard M. Nixon
met with Emperor Hirohito in Anchorage, Alaska, the first-ever
meeting of a U.S. President and a Japanese Monarch.
1973 Sep 26, The US federal
Rehabilitation Act with Section 504 was passed concerning
nondiscrimination and affirmative action. It took effect in May
1973 Sep 26, Concorde flew from
Washington DC to Paris in 3hr. 33m.
1973 Sep 26, Anna Magnani
(b.1908), Academy Award winning Italian actress, died in Rome.
1974 Sep 26, The NYT published
a front page article on the impact of the chlorofluorocarbon, used
in aerosols, on the ozone.
1975 Sep 26, Herman G. Fisher
(b.1898), co-founder of the Fisher-Price toy company (1930), died.
In 1930 he got together with Irving Price and Helen Schelle to
establish a toy company under the name of Fisher-Price.
1977 Sep 26, Sir Freddie Laker
began his cut-rate "Skytrain" service from London to NY. Laker
airways collapsed into bankruptcy in 1982.
1977 Sep 26, Israel announced a
cease-fire on Lebanese border.
1978 Sep 26, NY District Court
Judge Constance Baker Motley ruled that women sportswriters cannot
be banned from NYC sports locker rooms.
1978 Sep 26, British unions,
fed up with wage restraints, launched their “winter of discontent,"
to the humiliation of James Callaghan’s government.
3/27/05, p.A21)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.69)
1979 Sep 26, The body of a
young woman was found in Blackie’s Pasture in Tiburon, Ca., She had
been stabbed over 40 times with an ice pick and burned. In 2007 DNA
evidence identified her as Tammy Vincent (17). She had testified
this year against several people arrested during a raid in SeaTac,
Wash., of 2 establishments believed to be prostitution fronts.
(SFC, 10/2/07, p.B2)
1980 Sep 26, "Divine Madness"
starring Bette Midler, was released in the US.
1980 Sep 26, The Cuban
government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the freedom
flotilla of Cuban refugees that began the previous April. By this
time the danzon, "Cuba’s national dance," had all but disappeared.
(AP, 9/26/97)(SFC, 12/13/97, p.A14)
1980 Sep 26, A bomb attack at
the Oktoberfest in Munich killed 13 people.
1981 Sep 26, The twin-engine
Boeing 767 made its maiden flight in Everett, Wash.
1983 Sep 26, The Liberty of the
New York Yacht Club lost the America Cup to the Australia II, owned
by businessman Alan Bond. In 1851 the Schooner America outraced the
Aurora off the English coast to win a trophy that became known as
the America’s Cup. For 132 years the New York Yacht Club had
defeated all challengers to retain the prestigious America’s Cup,
the record for the longest winning streak in sports history.
8/22/97)(SFEC, 10/1/00, p.T4)
1983 Sep 26, The Soviet Union's
early warning system wrongly signaled the launch of a US Minuteman
intercontinental ballistic missile. Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov (44),
in charge of the system, decided the alarm was false and did not
launch a retaliatory strike. Because of military secrecy and
international policy, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998.
In 2004 the San-Francisco-based Association of World Citizens
presented Petrov a World Citizen Award.
1983 Sep 26, Cosmonauts Titov
and Strekalov were saved by their escape system when the rocket that
was to carry their Soyuz T-10-1 mission into space caught fire on
1985 Sep 26, Shamu, the killer
whale, was born in Orlando, Florida. She was the first killer whale
born in captivity to survive.
1986 Sep 26, William Hubbs
Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United
States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd
member. Rehnquist would serve as Chief Justice until September 3,
2005 when he died from thyroid cancer.
1987 Sep 26, In his Saturday
radio address, President Reagan said he was reluctantly signing
legislation restoring the automatic deficit-reducing provisions of
the Gramm-Rudman Act.
1987 Sep 26, "Star Trek: The
Next Generation," debuted on TV.
1988 Sep 26, In a farewell
speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Reagan saw "a moment
for hope" for peace in the world, citing a new U.S.-Soviet treaty to
sharply reduce nuclear arms due during the following year.
1989 Sep 26, In a speech to the
UN General Assembly, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze
accepted President Bush's call for deep cuts in US and Soviet
chemical weapon stockpiles. Shevardnadze called for the total
destruction of Soviet and US chemical weapons.
1989 Sep 26, The last
Vietnamese soldiers left Cambodia. Vietnam withdrew the last of
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(PC, 1992 ed, p.1113)
1990 Sep 26, The Motion Picture
Association of America announced it had created a new rating,
"NC-17," designed to bar moviegoers under the age of 17 from certain
films without the commercial stigma of the old "X" rating.
1990 Sep 26, Alberto Moravia,
Italian writer (Woman in Red), died at 82.
1991 Sep 26, AIDS patient
Kimberly Bergalis pleaded with Congress to enact mandatory AIDS
testing for health care workers.
1991 Sep 26, In Oracle,
Arizona, 4 men and 4 women began a two-year self-sufficiency stay
inside a $150 million, sealed-off structure on 3.15 acres known as
(AP, 9/26/97)(Wired, 2/98, p.172)(SSFC, 2/20/05,
1992 Sep 26, A Nigerian
military transport plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all
163 people aboard.
1992 Sep 26, South African
President F.W. de Klerk and African National Congress leader Nelson
Mandela held their first meeting in three months, during which they
agreed on the urgent need for an interim government.
1993 Sep 26, Eight people
emerged from the glass dome of Biosphere Two in the Arizona desert
after being sealed inside for two years in an experiment dogged by
setbacks and controversy. In 2006 Jane Poynter, one of the
participants, authored “The Human Experiment, Two Years and Twenty
Minutes Inside Biosphere 2."
(SFC, 11/25/96, p.A3)(AP, 9/26/98)(SFC, 10/10/06,
1994 Sep 26, Addressing the
U.N. General Assembly, President Clinton announced he had lifted
most U.S. sanctions against Haiti and urged other nations to follow
1994 Sep 26, US Senate Majority
Leader George Mitchell declared health care reform dead for the
1994 Sep 26, Jury selection
began in Los Angeles for the murder trial of O.J. Simpson.
1995 Sep 26, The prosecution
began its closing argument in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson.
1995 Sep 26, Bosnia’s warring
factions agreed on guidelines for elections and a future government.
1995 Sep 26, A bond trader at
Japan’s Daiwa Bank was charged with doctoring records to hide $1.1
billion in losses.
1996 Sep 26, President Clinton
signed a bill ensuring two-day hospital stays for new mothers and
1996 Sep 26, ValuJet received
federal permission to fly again three months after it was grounded
following a deadly crash.
1996 Sep 26, Richard Allen
Davis, the killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, was formally sentenced
to death in San Jose, Calif. It was his criminal record which
resulted in California's "Three strike law" for repeat offenders. He
is currently on death row in San Quentin State Prison, California.
1996 Sep 26, Astronaut Shannon
Lucid returned to Earth in the shuttle Atlantis after 188 days
aboard the Russian Mir space station, the longest time for any
American man or woman.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A20)(AP,
1996 Sep 26, Patricia Billings,
amateur sculptor and med tech, demonstrated her fire-proof material
GeoBond. It was made of gypsum, cement, and a secret off-the-shelf
ingredient that in combination would not burn even under flames over
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 26, The New England
Journal of Medicine reported new research that would provide a
simple test for mad cow disease based on a protein specific to the
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Sep 26, A total lunar
eclipse, the last before the year 2000, was scheduled.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A18)
1996 Sep 26, The US announced
the return to Haiti of documents confiscated 2 years ago from the
Haitian army and pro-military party.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 26, Former Pres.
Najibullah (1986-1990) and his brother, former security chief
Shahpur Ahmedzi, were executed and hung when the Taliban fighters
moved into Kabul. They had been in hiding since being overthrown 4
years ago. Officials hoped that the former king, Zahir Shah, would
return to lead the country.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Armenia tanks
were called in after 59 people were injured in protests over the
re-election of the president.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 26, In Italy the
foreign minister announced that the country would no longer make
land mines that are used against people.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A16)
1997 Sep 26, Gap Inc. dressed
the NY stock exchange in khakis fashion, the first casual dress day
in exchange history.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.C1)
1997 Sep 26, US and Russia
signed a package of arms control agreements that extended parts of
START II to 2007. Systems were still required to be disabled by
2003. Other accords modified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of
1972 with Belarus, Kazakstan, the Ukraine and Russia to allow
flexibility for the development of short range systems.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 26, In Algeria
militants attacked the village of El Hadj and killed 15 people.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, In Bosnia
political broadcasts began in Banja Luka under an agreement by rival
factions to share the airwaves on alternate days.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A26)
1997 Sep 26, A German court
convicted Nikola Jorgic, a Bosnian Serb, for leading a death squad
that killed 22 Muslims in Grapska during the war.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, An Indonesian
Garuda Air A-300 crashed while approaching Medan Airport in north
Sumatra and all 234 passengers were killed. Low visibility from the
areas fires were thought to have contributed the tragedy.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/29/97, p.A1)(AP,
1997 Sep 26, In Italy Bob Dylan
performed at religious congress in Bologna before a crowd 200,000
and Pope John Paul II.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 26, Two earthquakes
hit central Italy east of Umbria and at least 11 people were killed.
The basilica of Assisi, St. Mary of the Angels, built on the site
where St. Francis died, was severely damaged. 4 people were killed
while assessing damage from the first quake. An estimated 100,000
buildings in the Umbria and Marche regions were damaged.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A18)
1997 Sep 26, In Sicily a court
convicted 24 mobsters for the 1992 bombing of the top anti-mafia
prosecutor. Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the reputed "boss of bosses" was
among those convicted for having plotted the assassination of
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)
1998 Sep 26, The nation's first
march on cancer took place on the National Mall in Washington.
1998 Sep 26, Betty Carter,
Grammy-winning jazz singer, died of pancreatic cancer in New York at
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.D3) (AP,
1998 Sep 26, From Zimbabwe it
was reported that timber companies were poisoning hundreds of
baboons causing them to die a slow painful death over 7-10 days.
(SFC, 9/26/98, p.A5)
1998 Sep 26, In Kosovo the
Yugoslav army and Serbian police shot and killed 15 women, children
and elderly of the Deliaj clan in Gornji Obrinje. Three men were
burned to death and 3 more villagers were killed in nearby Donji
(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A1)
1999 Sep 26, America won its
first Ryder Cup since 1993 after trailing the European team 10-to-6
going into the final round. To the anger of the Europeans, US
players, along with caddies, officials and wives, stormed the green
to congratulate Justin Leonard for a 45-foot putt that all but won
the tournament for the Americans.
1999 Sep 26, The 182-nation IMF
put in place a new debt-relief initiative to help the world's
poorest nations. In a joint meeting with the World Bank coordinated
relief was planned to erase up to $100 million in debt.
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A18)
1999 Sep 26, In Afghanistan the
Taliban bombed Taloqan for a 2nd day and 11 people, most of them
children were killed.
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A18)
1999 Sep 26, In Ecuador Pres.
Jamil Mahuad announced that only interest on bonds not guaranteed by
the US Treasury would be paid. A $98 million payment interest
payment on its Brady bonds was due the next day.
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.C16)
1999 Sep 26, In Egypt a weekend
referendum for Pres. Mubarek (71) gave him 94% support with a 79%
turnout. Opposition groups boycotted the vote and called for
democracy and the lifting of the state of emergency in force since
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.C16)
1999 Sep 26, In India
separatist guerrillas of the National Liberation Front of Tripura
ambushed and killed 8 soldiers in the northeastern Dhalai district
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A18)
1999 Sep 26, In Mexico 63
people were killed in a series of explosions in the city of Celaya,
120 miles northwest of Mexico City. Powder from fireworks was
blamed. Three government officials were later arrested for abetting
illegal sales of fireworks and officials seized some 14 tons of
gunpowder. 6 government officials and 7 business owners were later
arrested in connection with the explosion.
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A16)(SFC, 9/30/99, p.D14)(SFC,
1999 Sep 26, In Serbia some
45,000 people marched against Pres. Milosevic in Belgrade.
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A18)
1999 Sep 26, In Taiwan 2
brothers, Sun Chi-kwang (20) and Sun Chi-feng (26), were pulled from
wreckage after being trapped for 5 1/2 days.
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 26, In Turkey 11
leftist inmates were killed and a simmering prison uprising erupted
as dozens of guards were seized across the country.
(WSJ, 9/28/99, p.A1)
2000 Sep 26, At the Sydney
Olympics, the U.S. softball team completed a stunning comeback by
edging Japan 2-to-1 in extra innings to win its second straight gold
2000 Sep 26, The annual
meetings of the World Bank and IMF officials officially opened in
Prague with delegates from 182 nations. Protestors numbered far less
than the expected 20,000. An estimated 6,000 protestors battled
police with homemade gasoline bombs and cobblestones from the
(SFC, 9/26/00, p.A11)(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A14)
2000 Sep 26, Actor Richard
Mulligan died at age 67.
2000 Sep 26, A Greek ferry, the
Express Samina, with 510 passengers sank near the Aegean Sea island
of Paros. At least 75 people were killed. The captain and 4 crew
members were arrested following the collision of the ship with a
well-known rock marked by a visible light. Survivors said crew
members were watching a soccer match on tv. The ship was operated by
Minoan Flying Dolphins.
(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A18)(SFC, 9/28/00, p.A12)(SFC,
2000 Sep 26, In the Philippines
the Supreme Court announced an 18-month sentence for Tommy Suharto
(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A15)
2000 Sep 26, Philippine Abu
Sayyaf rebels claimed to have escaped from Jolo Island.
(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A15)
2000 Sep 26, The Yugoslav
government under Slobodan Milosevic conceded loss in the
presidential elections but called for a runoff saying Kostunica won
only 48% vs. 40% for Milosevic. The move that prompted mass protests
leading to Milosevic's ouster.
(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A1)(AP, 9/26/01)
2001 Sep 26, Pres. Bush met
with US Sikh and Muslim leaders and declared that discrimination
against such groups would not be tolerated.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Sep 26, US authorities
arrested 9 men suspected of fraudulently obtaining licenses to carry
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Sep 26, In Cincinnati,
Ohio, Stephen Roach, a white police officer, was acquitted of all
charges in the April shooting of Timothy Thomas (19). The acquittal
sparked more unrest.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A11)(WSJ, 9/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 26, In Vacaville,
California, FBI agents arrested Bryan Douglas Rosenquist (39) and
Michelle Elaine Serrao (41) for embezzling almost $12 million from
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A13)
2001 Sep 26, Enron Pres.
Kenneth Lay urged his employees to buy Enron stock. Lay sold shares
from 2000-2001 for a gain of $146 million. Enron filed for
bankruptcy on Dec 2.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A1)
2001 Sep 26, In Afghanistan
protesters turned a Taliban march into an attack on the mothballed
US Embassy in Kabul.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 26, In Algeria
suspected Islamic militants killed 22 people in Larbaa. 12 of the
dead were killed while celebrating a wedding.
(SFC, 9/28/01, p.D6)
2001 Sep 26, During a visit to
Armenia, Pope John Paul the Second paid his respects to the vast
number of Armenians who perished under Ottoman rule.
2001 Sep 26, Israel’s Shimon
Peres and Yasser Arafat met for peace talks at the urging of the
United States. They pledged a new drive for peace and agreed to
resume cooperation between their security forces as Palestinian
gunmen and Israeli troops exchanged gunfire. Gaza fighting left a
Palestinian youth dead.
(SFC, 9/26/01, p.C2)(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A11)(WSJ,
9/27/01, p.A1)(AP, 9/26/02)
2001 Sep 26-27, In Northern
Ireland riots took place on north Belfast’s Crumlin road. 46 police
officers were wounded by gasoline bombs, rocks and fire-crackers.
The Ulster Defense Association (UDA) was blamed.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.B2)
2001 Sep 26, Russian military
officers met with colleagues from 9 former Soviet republics to
discuss joint action against terrorists.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 26, Spain detained 6
Algerians with alleged links to Osama bin Laden and a group planning
attacks on US targets in Europe.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Sep 26, Sudan began
rounding up extremists that have used the country as an operating
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 26, Typhoon Lekima hit
Taiwan causing mudslides and power losses. 2 fishermen drowned and 1
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A11)
2001 Sep 26, Turkey approved
constitutional reforms that eased restrictions on broadcasting and
publishing in the Kurdish language.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A11)
2002 Sep 26, WorldCom former
controller David Myers pleaded guilty to securities fraud, saying he
was told by "senior management" to falsify records in what became
the largest corporate accounting scandal in US history. Myers was
later sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
2002 Sep 26, Gap Inc, 6 other
US firms and 23 local manufacturers settled a class-action lawsuit
over alleged sweatshop abuses on Saipan. The deal created a $20
million fund for back wages and a monitoring system.
(SFC, 9/27/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 26, In Norfolk,
Nebraska, 3 men shot and killed 4 bank employees and a customer at a
US Bank branch. Jose Sandoval, Jorge Galindo and Erick Fernando Vela
were arrested after a few hours 75 miles away. A 4th suspect was
arrested later. 3 were convicted of first-degree murder while a
fourth pleaded guilty.
(SFC, 9/27/02, p.A4)(AP, 9/26/07)
2002 Sep 26, US immigration
officials seized Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, after his name
popped up on a watch list at JFK. US officials refused to allow
legal council or a phone call. The CIA questioned him and then
handed him over to Syrian intelligence where he was held and
tortured for 10 months before being released. The case came to be
called an instance of "torture by proxy." In 2006 a Canadian
government report said the US "very likely" sent the software
engineer to Syria, where he was tortured, based on the false
accusation by Canadian authorities that he was suspected of links to
(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.D1)(AP, 9/19/06)
2002 Sep 26, A new edition of
the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary was published and contained
such new words as: Jedi, Klingons, Grinches, gearheads,
bunny-huggers and bunny-boilers.
2002 Sep 26, In Colombia
prosecutors accused 71 police officers, including a former top
anti-drug official, of taking more than $2 million in U.S. aid.
2002 Sep 26, In Guyana gunmen
opened fire at a bar popular with some ruling party members, killing
three people and injuring seven others, including the country's
chief prosecutor who was involved in a high-profile treason trial.
2002 Sep 26, Israeli helicopter
gunships fired missiles into Gaza City, killing two Palestinians in
an escalation of violence. The attack was bid to kill Hamas bomb
maker Mohammed Deif.
(AP, 9/26/02)(WSJ, 9/27/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 26, Zerah Warhaftig
(96), a signer of Israel's declaration of independence and a rescuer
of Jewish refugees during World War II, died.
2002 Sep 26, In Mexico Martha
Sahagun de Fox launched a conference of first ladies of the Americas
with a promise to forge creative answers to the problem of child
2002 Sep 26, NATO planned to
issue invitations in November to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Expansion would commit
the current 19 members to defend the borders of the new members.
(SFC, 9/26/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 26, In Pakistan a
passenger train derailed as it crossed a weakened bridge in the
southwest, killing 16 people and injuring 70 others.
2002 Sep 26, A Russian military
helicopter was shot down in the Russian republic of Ingushetia near
the border with Chechnya, killing two crewmen. At least 14 Russian
servicemen were killed in fierce fighting with rebels.
(AP, 9/26/02)(SFC, 9/27/02, p.A10)
2002 Sep 25-2002 Sep 26, Over
800 passengers and crew were believed to have perished when the
Senegal’s crowded MS Joola, a state-run ferry, heaved to its side
shortly before midnight in a fierce storm off the coast of Gambia.
The toll was later raised to 1,863 dead. The ship had been pushed
into service while still needing vital repairs. The ferry was
licensed to carry 550 people but had 1,927 passengers on board, of
whom only 64 survived.
(WSJ, 9/30/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/24/06, p.A12)(Econ,
2/24/07, p.58)(AFP, 3/19/12)
2002 Sep 26, In Venezuela
thousands took to the streets of Caracas to protest a decree giving
the government the authority to ban protests in several areas.
2003 Sep 26, President Bush and
Russian President Vladimir Putin opened a two-day summit at Camp
2003 Sep 26, The US government
issued a recall for Segway scooters, citing instances in which
riders fell off when the batteries ran low.
2003 Sep 26, US troops fired on
two cars at a checkpoint in Fallujah, killing four Iraqis and
injuring five others. Over 4 days Sheikh Mishkhen al Jumaili lost 9
relatives including his son.
(AP, 9/27/03)(SFC, 10/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 26, Burkina Faso
President Blaise Compaore demanded the elimination of U.S. export
subsidies on cotton.
2003 Sep 26, In Cuba Brazil's
Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed business accords with Castro
that included an agreement to renegotiate Havana's $40 million debt
2003 Sep 26, Robert Palmer
(54), a rock singer known for his sharp suits and hits including
"Addicted to Love," died in Paris of a heart attack.
2003 Sep 26, German authorities
reported that they have broken up 38 child-pornography rings with
links to tens of thousands of suspects around the world, including
2003 Sep 26, A Palestinian
gunman killed 2 people including a baby girl in an Israeli
settlement outside Hebron.
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A8)
2003 Sep 26, In Ivory Coast
gunmen broke into a bank and sparked a night-long street battle that
left over 20 people dead. French troops rushed in the next day to
try to impose order.
2003 Sep 26, Nawabzada
Nasrullah Khan (85), head of Pakistan's main opposition alliance and
one of its greatest democracy advocates, died.
2003 Sep 26, In Singapore
Vignes Mourthi (23), found guilty of drug trafficking last year
after his arrest in September 2001 for smuggling 27 grams (0.98
ounces) of heroin and Moorthi Angappan, convicted of helping him,
were hanged. Over the past four years, 88 people have been hanged,
mostly for drug offenses. The government says the death penalty
effectively deters drug addiction.
2004 Sep 26, Hurricane Jeanne
blasted ashore in Florida with drenching rains and 120 mph wind. At
least 1.5 million people were without power. An estimated 6 people
(AP, 9/26/04)(WSJ, 9/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 26, Gordon Brown,
Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer, repeated his proposal that
the IMF should revalue its gold reserves and use proceeds to cancel
some Third World debt.
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.A12)
2004 Sep 26, Colombia's army
killed at least 13 right-wing fighters during sustained combat with
a renegade paramilitary group that has refused to participate in
government peace talks.
2004 Sep 26, Haitians
surrounded by the destruction of Tropical Storm Jeanne prayed for
the 1,500 dead during church services and gave thanks their lives
were spared, while the UN rushed more peacekeepers in to stem
looting in the ravaged city of Gonaives. Tropical Storm Jeanne wiped
out 7% of Haiti’s GDP.
(AP, 9/27/04)(Econ, 2/14/09, p.45)
2004 Sep 26, Suicide attackers
detonated a pair of car bombs outside an Iraqi National Guard
compound west of the capital, wounding American and Iraqi forces. A
rocket hit a busy Baghdad neighborhood, killing at least one person
and wounding eight.
2004 Sep 26, In Pakistan Amjad
Hussain Farooqi, accused in two attempts on the life of President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, died in a four-hour shootout
at a house in the southern town of Nawabshah. He was also wanted for
his alleged role in the 2002 kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
2004 Sep 26, In Saudi Arabia
French national Laurent Barbot, a technical assistant for French
electronics group Thales, was shot and killed in Jeddah. Chadian
militants Isa Barkaj and Isaac Shakila were later convicted of
shooting. Both were executed in 2015.
(AP, 9/26/04) (AP, 8/20/15)
2004 Sep 26, Ezzedin Sheikh
Khalil, a senior Hamas operative, was killed in a car bombing
outside his house in Damascus, the first such killing of a leader of
the Islamic militant group in Syria. The hit was claimed by Israeli
(AP, 9/27/04)(Econ, 10/2/04, p.47)
2004 Sep 26, Turkey’s
Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve penal code reforms aimed
at boosting its chances of starting membership talks with the
2005 Sep 26, Cindy Sheehan
(48), the California mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, was
arrested along with a number of others for demonstrating against the
war in Iraq in front of the White House without a permit. 40 people
were arrested for demonstrating at the Pentagon.
(SFC, 9/27/05, p.A2)
2005 Sep 26, A military court
in Texas convicted Pfc. Lynndie England (22) on 6 of 7 counts of
conspiracy and maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
England was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of
maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act.
She was acquitted on a second conspiracy count. She was the next day
sentenced to 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 9/27/05, p.A1)(AP, 9/28/05)
2005 Sep 26, In Mineola, NY,
ex-Roslyn schools chief Frank Tassone (58) admitted he stole
millions of dollars in taxpayer money to finance everything from his
breakfast bagel to European jaunts on the Concorde. Records showed
that Tassone and a former school official withdrew the district's
money from ATMs almost every day between February 2001 and October
2002, with Tassone taking out a monthly average of $21,747. As part
of a plea bargain Tassone will spend four to 12 years in prison and
pay back an estimated $2 million.
2005 Sep 26, A judge in El
Paso, Texas, cited conventions against sending a person to a country
where he could face torture. Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban militant,
was wanted in Venezuela for a 1976 airliner bombing. President Hugo
Chavez said the decision by a US immigration judge in the case of
Posada protects a terrorist and shows the "cynicism of the empire,"
a term he uses for President Bush's government.
2005 Sep 26, Dr. Milan Henzl,
Czech-born obstetrician and gynecologist, died in Palo Alto, Ca. As
a research scientist at Syntex he developed the anti-fungal drug
butoconazole (Femstat) for yeast infections and nafarelin (Synarel)
(SFC, 10/6/05, p.B7)
2005 Sep 26, Leo Sternbach
(97), Austrian-born chemist and inventor of valium, died in North
Carolina. He had created an entirely new class of tranquilizers
named benzodiazepines, which were safer and more effective than
previous treatments such as barbiturates, opiates, alcohol and
herbs. His other breakthroughs included the sleeping pills Dalmane
and Mogadon, Klonopin for epileptic seizures and Arfonad, for
limiting bleeding during brain surgery.
(http://anxiety-panic.com/history/h-1960.htm)(SFC, 10/1/05, p.B4)
2005 Sep 26, A drug policy
group said Afghanistan could reduce its destabilizing heroin trade
by licensing an opium crop to produce medical morphine for export,
but the UN dismissed the idea as unlikely to work and the government
called it premature.
2005 Sep 26, In Afghanistan 2
US troops were killed in separate militant attacks.
2005 Sep 26, Archaeologists in
northern Austria reported finding the remains of two newborns dating
back 27,000 years while excavating a hillside near Krems. The
newborns were buried beneath mammoth bones and with a string of 31
beads, suggesting that the internment involved some sort of ritual.
2005 Sep 26, China's navy
commissioned the first in a new class of domestically designed and
built warships. The missile frigate Wenzhou, named after a port city
in eastern China, entered service at a ceremony attended by East
China Fleet commander Zhao Guojun.
2005 Sep 26, Typhoon Damrey
slammed into southern China's resort island of Hainan, killing at
least two people, collapsing houses and sweeping away rice, rubber
and banana crops.
2005 Sep 26, Dubai launched its
Dubai Int’l. Financial Exchange (DIFX). Its 1st securities were
certificates linked to the world’s main stock market indices and
issued by Deutsche Bank, one of its founding members.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.71)
2005 Sep 26, The death of a
27-year-old woman took Indonesia's death toll from bird flu to six
as the government announced that 400,000 tablets of donated medicine
to fight the virus would soon arrive in the country.
2005 Sep 26, The US military
freed 500 Iraqi detainees from Abu Ghraib prison, a goodwill gesture
requested by the Iraqi government ahead of the Muslim holy month of
2005 Sep 26, An al-Qaeda leader
in the northern city of Mosul surrendered to the Iraqi military. Abu
Nasser, another al-Qaeda leader, died along with several others in a
raid on the group's headquarters in Karabila. A US Marine was killed
by a roadside bomb in the town of Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad.
2005 Sep 26, A US Marine
commander said insurgents loyal to al-Zarqawi had taken over at
least 5 Iraqi towns on the border with Syria, ordering residents to
leave of face death.
(SFC, 9/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 26, Roadside bombs
killed three US soldiers in two separate attacks. A suicide car
bomber attacked a police checkpoint guarding several government
ministries, killing at least six people and wounding 13. Elsewhere
five teachers and their driver who were shot to death in a classroom
by suspected insurgents disguised as policemen.
2005 Sep 26, The Canadian
general who supervised the tortuous process said the Irish
Republican Army has given up its entire arsenal of weapons.
2005 Sep 26, Israeli aircraft
attacked suspected weapons factories throughout the Gaza Strip,
pushing forward an offensive against Palestinian militants despite a
pledge by a top Hamas leader to halt rocket fire against Israel.
2005 Sep 26, Italian PM Silvio
Berlusconi was cleared of charges of false bookkeeping in a case
involving funding for the former Socialist party.
2005 Sep 26, Japan's Cabinet
approved legislation to privatize the country's trillion-dollar
postal service, pushing ahead with its plan to create the world's
largest financial institution.
2005 Sep 26-2005 Sep 27,
Intense rains throughout southern Mexico and parts of Central
America caused rivers to overflow, killing at least 3 people and
forcing thousands to flee their homes.
2005 Sep 26, Dutch bank ABN
Amro said it had signed a contract with Banca Popolare Italiana and
its allies to buy their 39.37 percent stake in Banca Antonveneta for
a total outlay of 3.2 billion euros (3.85 billion dollars).
2005 Sep 26, In Peru Shining
Path founder Abimael Guzman, whose messianic communist vision
inspired a rebellion that left almost 70,000 people dead, went on
trial again with his attorney predicting he'll receive the same life
sentence that was thrown out two years ago.
2005 Sep 26, Spain’s high court
convicted 18 Muslim immigrants of terrorism-related charges. Imad
Eddin Barakat Yarkas, a suspected al-Qaida cell leader, was
sentenced to 27 years in prison. He was convicted of conspiring to
commit murder in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in the US,
concluding Europe's biggest trial of alleged members of the
terrorist group. Among those convicted was an Al-Jazeera TV
correspondent, who had interviewed bin Laden. He was sentenced to 7
(Reuters, 9/26/05)(SFC, 9/27/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 26, The UN high
commissioner for human rights said at least 400 and as many as 500
people were killed in political violence in Togo since the Feb 5
death of Pres. Gnassingbe Eyadema, and security forces were mostly
2005 Sep 26, In Tashkent 3
defendants accused of launching a revolt to bring Islamic rule to
Uzbekistan told a court they trained at military camps in
neighboring Kyrgyzstan, backing the government's claim of a
conspiracy that included foreign fighters and funding.
2005 Sep 26, Hugo de los Reyes
Chavez, father of Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez and governor of
Barinas state, ordered the seizure of a plant owned by the country's
largest food company, the latest move in the federal government's
land reform program.
2006 Sep 26, President Bush
ordered release of a declassified version of a government
intelligence report that said the war in Iraq had become a "cause
celebre" for Islamic extremists.
2006 Sep 26, Former Enron chief
financial officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced by a federal judge in
Houston to six years in prison for his role in the fallen energy
2006 Sep 26, In Florida,
brothers Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela (67) and Miguel Rodriguez
Orejuela (62), who headed the Colombia’s Cali cocaine cartel, were
sentenced to 30 years in prison. They agreed to forfeit $2.1 billion
worth of assets linked to the drug trade as part of their plea
agreement. In exchange half a dozen of their relatives would not
(SFC, 9/27/06, p.A12)
2006 Sep 26, EMI Classics
released a CD of Paul McCartney’s four-movement oratorio “Ecce cor
meum." This was his 3rd large-scale choral work.
(WSJ, 9/21/06, p.D6)
2006 Sep 26, Paul Allen,
co-founder of Microsoft Corp., announced a $41 million computerized
atlas of the 20,000 genes in the brain of a mouse. The atlas was
made available online at www.brainatlas.org.
(SFC, 9/27/06, p.A9)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.91)
2006 Sep 26, Researchers
reported that Earth’s temperature has climbed to a 12,000-year high
and that it has been warming at a rate of .36° Fahrenheit per decade
for the last 30 years.
(SFC, 9/26/06, p.A5)
2006 Sep 26, Iva Toguri
D’Aquino, (nee Iva Ikuko Toguri, 1916-2006), a Japanese-American
convicted in 1949 for being wartime radio propagandist "Tokyo Rose,"
died in Chicago. [see Sep 5, 1945]
(SFC, 9/28/06, p.A18)(Econ, 10/7/06, p.93)
2006 Sep 26, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber struck outside the compound of a southern governor,
killing 18 people, including several Muslim pilgrims seeking
paperwork to travel to Mecca. A bomb in Kabul killed an Italian
soldier and a child.
2006 Sep 26, In Brazil
officials said Rio will spend $1 million to map two sprawling
shantytowns as the first step toward granting land titles to
residents who otherwise have no property rights in the sprawling
2006 Sep 26, In Chile thousands
of public school teachers held a generally peaceful march in
Santiago to demand higher pay.
2006 Sep 26, The European
Commission recommended that Bulgaria and Romania join the EU next
year, but under some of the harshest terms ever faced by new
2006 Sep 26, Iraqi security
forces arrested another leader of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a
group accused of numerous attacks on US forces. A series of bomb
explosions killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens in and
around Baghdad, where police also found 23 tortured bodies,
apparently victims of sectarian death squads.
(AP, 9/26/06)(AP, 9/27/06)(WSJ, 9/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Sep 26, In Japan
nationalist Shinzo Abe, a proponent of a robust alliance with the US
and a more assertive military, easily won election in parliament to
become the country’s youngest postwar prime minister. Abe faced a
government debt equivalent to 170% of GDP. Junichiro Koizumi
formally stepped down as prime minister. His achievements included
changing the way politics was carried out, advancing big economic
reforms, and extending Japan’s role in foreign affairs.
(AP, 9/26/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.14)(Econ, 9/23/06,
2006 Sep 26, Officials said a
cow in northern Japan is suspected of having the country's 29th case
of mad cow disease.
2006 Sep 26, Palestinian
militants fired at least two rockets from the Gaza Strip into
southern Israel, wounding at least one person.
2006 Sep 26, Russia and Iran
signed a deal in Moscow whereby Russia will ship fuel to a
controversial atomic power plant it is building in Iran by March.
2006 Sep 26, In Turkey 56
Kurdish mayors stood trial, accused in a freedom-of-speech case on
charges of helping terrorists by arguing to keep a Kurdish TV
station on the air.
2006 Sep 26, The UN and Sudan
discussed the deployment of UN military advisers to reinforce
African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, in a possible compromise in
their standoff over the war-torn region.
2006 Sep 26, The Vatican said
it has excommunicated Zambia’s Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, for
defying the Holy See by installing four married men as bishops. The
prelate had already angered the Vatican by getting married in 2001.
2006 Sep 26, A former chief of
environmental protection in the US Virgin Islands pleaded guilty to
charges of conspiracy to defraud the islands' government of more
than $1 million. Hollis Griffin (43) acknowledged engaging in a
five-year bribery scheme that paid up to $350,000 in kickbacks to at
least four government officials in exchange for consulting contracts
worth $1.4 million.
2007 Sep 26, The United Auto
Workers union and General Motors Corp reached a tentative contract,
ending a national strike by 73,000 workers with a groundbreaking
deal that includes a health-care trust fund. The Voluntary Employee
Beneficiary Association (VEBA) will be administered by the union and
take on some $51 billion in health-care liabilities.
(AP, 9/26/07)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.67)
2007 Sep 26, A judge declared a
mistrial in Phil Spector's murder trial because the jury was
deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting the music producer of killing
actress Lana Clarkson.
2007 Sep 26, Chevron Corp.
Announced a $15 billion stock 3-year stock buyback program.
(SFC, 9/27/07, p.C3)
2007 Sep 26, A new study by
doctors of Kaiser Permanente said even moderate drinking increases
the risk of breast cancer for women.
(SFC, 9/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 26, Barry Bonds went 0
for 3 in his last baseball game with the SF Giants.
(SFC, 9/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 26, Abu Dhabi signed a
$1 billion deal with Warner Brothers to jointly produce big budget
films and video games.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.76)(http://tinyurl.com/37xosj)
2007 Sep 26, In southern
Afghanistan two battles that began the previous day killed more than
165 Taliban fighters and a US-led coalition soldier. Two foreign Red
Cross workers who aided in freeing a group of South Korean hostages
last month have been abducted in Afghanistan as they were trying to
help secure the release of a German captive.
(AP, 9/26/07)(AP, 9/27/07)
2007 Sep 26, Canadian police
charged the two co-founders of now-defunct Portus Alternative Asset
Management Inc with 12 counts of fraud, money laundering, and
possession of property obtained by crime, the result of a lengthy
2007 Sep 26, The EU accused the
US of trying to weaken aircraft maker Airbus and causing 27 billion
dollars (19 billion euros) in losses by paying subsidies to US rival
2007 Sep 26, The French
government unveiled its 2008 budget with a deficit forecast at €41.7
billion ($58.8 billion).
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.53)
2007 Sep 26, Iraq's PM
al-Maliki in NYC said national reconciliation was the key to ending
the daily barrage of violence in his country. He called on world
leaders to help bring bickering factions together but offered few
political solutions of his own. A wave of bombings and shootings
swept Iraq, killing more than 50 people. A suicide truck bomber
struck a Sunni tribal leader's house near the Syrian border, killing
at least five people in the latest attack by suspected Sunni
extremists on provincial officials and tribal figures. A parked car
bomb exploded near a group of black market gasoline vendors in
Shurqat, killing five people and wounding seven. At least eight
people were killed and 10 wounded in scattered violence in Baqouba,
while the bullet-riddled bodies of a Shiite man and three sons also
were found left on a street in an eastern section of the city.
Northeast of Baghdad a policeman was killed and two others injured
in Khan Bani Saad, and a civilian was killed and one wounded by
random gunfire in Khalis.
(AP, 9/26/07)(AP, 9/27/07)
2007 Sep 26, In Indian Kashmir
4 suspected Muslim militants were killed as they crossed into
southern Poonch and northern Kupwara districts from the
Pakistani-zone of the divided state. Government troops also shot
dead two "wanted" commanders of the pro-Pakistan rebel group Hizbul
Mujahedin in southern Doda district.
2007 Sep 26, An Israeli missile
strike targeted a jeep carrying members of the Army of Islam. Five
passengers were killed, the Army of Islam said. The Israeli military
said the jeep was carrying rockets ready for use. In northern Gaza,
Israeli tanks and bulldozers briefly entered the town of Beit
Hanoun, following rocket fire from the area. At one point, a tank
shell was fired toward a group of people between two houses, killing
four and wounding 25.
2007 Sep 26, In Myanmar at
least four people including three Buddhist monks were killed as
security forces used weapons and tear gas to crush protests that
have erupted nationwide against the military junta.
2007 Sep 26, Transparency
International's 2007 index ranked Myanmar and Somalia as the most
corrupt nations. Both received the lowest score of 1.4 out of 10.
Denmark, Finland and New Zealand were ranked the least corrupt, each
2007 Sep 26, The Nepali
Congress party, the Maoists' main partner in last November's peace
deal, endorsed a republican agenda, ending a traditional position of
support for some kind of royal role in the impoverished Himalayan
2007 Sep 26, Erik Hazelhoff
Roelfzema (b.1917), the Dutch World War II resistance hero better
known as the "Soldier of Orange," died at his home in Hawaii. His
fame in the Netherlands leaped after he published his book, "Soldaat
van Oranje" (Soldier of Orange) in 1971. He became known outside the
country after the book was made into a film of the same name by
director Paul Verhoeven in 1977, starring Rutger Hauer in the title
(AP, 9/29/07)(SFC, 10/9/07, p.B4)
2007 Sep 26, Dr. Judith Asuni
(60), A US aid worker, was arrested in the oil-rich Niger Delta
along with German nationals Florian Orpitz (35), and Andy Lehmann
(26), and one Nigerian, Danjuma Saidu. Asuni was said to have
facilitated the Germans' visit to Nigeria and helped them enter the
petroleum installation to film. Asuni was granted bail on Oct 23.
(AFP, 10/7/07)(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Sep 26, Russia unveiled
its regional 95-seat Superjet-100, a government-backed effort to
re-energize the country's ailing aviation industry and get into a
market now dominated by Bombardier and Embraer.
2007 Sep 26, Officials said
Turkey and Iraq have agreed to sign a counterterrorism deal cracking
down on separatist Kurdish rebels holed up in bases in northern
2007 Sep 26, In southern
Vietnam a section of a bridge under construction collapsed, killing
at least 52 workers and injuring 97 others. The bridge was being
built across the Hau River, a branch of the Mekong River, in the
southern city of Can Tho.
2008 Sep 26, Barack Obama and
John McCain shared a stage in their first of three presidential
debates. It primarily focused on foreign policy.
2008 Sep 26, The Utah
legislature adjourned after addressing a $354 million budget deficit
in a 2-day special session, primarily through a three percent
across-the-board cut in state agency spending, while preserving a
$500 million reserve fund to address a potential future shortfall.
2008 Sep 26, Marian McQuade
(b.1917), lobbyist for the elderly and National Grandparents Day,
died. Her efforts led Pres. Carter to designate the holiday in 1979.
She got West Virginia to be the first state to create a Grandparents
Day in 1974.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 26, Paul Newman
(b.1925), the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool
as the anti-hero of such films as "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke" and "The
Color of Money," died after a long battle with cancer at his
farmhouse near Westport, Conn.
2008 Sep 26, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber targeting a militia commander killed five people, and
wounded seven others in eastern Khost province. Three policemen were
killed in Ghazni province when militants linked to Taliban attacked
their patrol. Troops backed by gunship helicopters killed five
Taliban-linked militants in Ghazni province. Taliban militants
released 118 Afghan laborers.
(AP, 9/26/08)(AFP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, Yves Rossy of
Switzerland leapt from a plane and into the record books, crossing
the English channel in 13 minutes on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
2008 Sep 26, In eastern
Indonesia a packed ferry caught fire and sank between two coastal
villages in the Maluku islands, killing at least eight people.
2008 Sep 26, Pakistan said that
its troops had killed 1,000 Islamist militants in a month-long
offensive in the Bajaur region in which 27 soldiers died. Five top
Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders were among those killed. Police
raided a militant hideout in Karachi, triggering a shootout during
which three suicide bombers blew themselves up. The body of a man
held in handcuffs was found in the rubble. The prisoner in the
rubble was identified as a wealthy supplier of fuel and goods to US
and NATO forces in Afghanistan. A bomb blast caused a train to
derail in eastern Punjab province, killing 6 people including 3
(AP, 9/26/08)(AFP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, In the Philippines
three soldiers were killed after they tripped landmines planted near
a New People's Army camp outside Lingig township in Surigao del Sur
province. Informants reported that eight guerrillas had been killed
since Sep 24 when army soldiers overran a rebel camp.
2008 Sep 26, Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to create an upgraded nuclear
deterrence system for Russia by 2020, including a space defense
system and new nuclear submarines.
2008 Sep 26, Somali pirates
hijacked the Liberian-flagged oil tanker MV Genius, a Greek-owned
ship with 19 crew. The MV Genius was ransomed and released on Nov
2008 Sep 26, In Sri Lanka at
least 52 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heavy fighting between
troops and the guerrillas just outside the insurgents' northern
capital. Fighting along the northern region of Weli Oya and Jaffna
left eight rebels and two soldiers dead.
2008 Sep 26, Turkmenistan's
highest legislative body unanimously approved a new constitution
that increased the president's powers but also broadened the role of
2009 Sep 26, In Afghanistan an
airstrike by international forces in Wardak province, bordering
Kabul, killed three Afghan civilians. 7 Taliban militants were
killed in a gunbattle with police in Kunduz province. 3 Afghan
civilians died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in western
Farah province. Two US service members died in the south, one from a
roadside bomb explosion and the other from an insurgent attack. 3
French soldiers were killed in a violent storm in northeastern
Kapisa province when one was struck by lightning and two others were
carried off by a flooding river. A 4th French soldier was killed
when an armored vehicle fell into a ravine.
2009 Sep 26, The Australian
town of Bundanoon pulled all bottled water from its shelves and
replaced it with refillable bottles in what is believed to be a
2009 Sep 26, In Belgium two
burglary suspects were killed after the excessive explosives they
were using to break into a bank's safe blew up the whole building.
2009 Sep 26, China reported
that medical tests have shown at least 121 children living near a
battery plant in eastern Fujian province are suffering from lead
poisoning, the latest in a recent string of such cases that have
affected hundreds. The government has ordered the Huaqiang Battery
Plant to shut about 10 days ago after local villagers approached the
authorities with test results showing lead poisoning in some
2009 Sep 26, Greek socialist
opposition leader George Papandreou (57), who is widely expected to
win the national election next weekend, said fighting endemic
corruption and creating a stimulus package are essential if Greece
is to emerge from a deep financial crisis.
2009 Sep 26, Ali Akbar Salehi,
Iran's nuclear chief, said his country will allow the UN nuclear
agency to inspect its newly revealed, still unfinished uranium
2009 Sep 26, In Iran, one day
before the sale of Telecommunication Co. of Iran (TCI), the
Pishgaman Kavir Yazd Cooperative Co. received a letter from the
Iranian Privatization Organization (IPO) stating that it wasn't
qualified to participate in the bid process.
2009 Sep 26, In northern Iraq a
US military drone crashed, hitting a regional office of Iraq's
largest Sunni political party in Mosul, an area that remains an
insurgent stronghold. At least six suspected insurgents were
killed in a raid by Iraqi police about 50 miles (85km) northwest of
Kirkuk. Gunmen killed an off-duty policeman during a drive-by
shooting in central Mosul.
2009 Sep 26, In Morocco Akhbar
Al Youm published a caricature of a member of the royal family,
Prince Moulay Ismail, cousin of King Mohammed VI. On Dec 29 an
appeal court in Casablanca upheld a four-year suspended jail term
for the chief editor of Akhbar Al Youm, Taoufiq Bouachrine, and
cartoonist Khalid Gueddar.
2009 Sep 26, In North Korea 97
older South Koreans reunited with 228 North Korean relatives at the
Diamond Mountain resort. This was the first reunion in nearly two
(SSFC, 9/27/09, p.A4)
2009 Sep 26, In northwestern
Pakistan 2 suicide car bombs killed 22 people and wounded about 150
others in separate attacks in Bannu and Peshawar, just days after
the Taliban warned suicide strikes were coming if the military
pressed forward with an offensive. A third bomb injured 4 in the
(AP, 9/26/09)(AP, 9/27/09)
2009 Sep 26, In the northern
Philippines nearly a month's worth of rain fell in six hours as
Tropical Storm Ketsana slammed ashore, stranding thousands on
rooftops in the capital's worst flooding in more than 42 years.
2009 Sep 26, In Rwanda at least
four people were killed and 52 injured when an unidentified man
lobbed a grenade into a crowd at a village market. Police suspect it
was an act of sabotage to sow terror in rural districts.
2009 Sep 26, In Spain "City of
Life and Death," Chinese director Lu Chuan's account of the Japanese
occupation of Nanjing in 1937, won top honors at the San Sebastian
2009 Sep 26, In Sri Lanka
soldiers fired on a group of war refugees trying to flee a camp in
the north of the island, wounding two.
2009 Sep 26, In Switzerland
director Roman Polanski (76) was taken into custody on a 31-year-old
US arrest warrant, where he traveled to receive an award at the
Zurich Film Festival for his lifetime work as a director. Polanski
fled the United States in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to
unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
(AP, 9/27/09)(SFC, 9/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Sep 26, Turkey's navy
commandos aboard a frigate captured seven pirates in the Gulf of
Aden off Somalia's coast.
2009 Sep 26, Pope Benedict XVI
criticized the communist era's fierce religious persecution as he
began a three-day pilgrimage to the Czech Republic, and urged the
heavily secular nation to rediscover its Christian roots.
2009 Sep 26, In Venezuela some
30 African and South American leaders met for a 2-day summit on
Margarita Island seeking to build on their alliances.
2010 Sep 26, San Francisco held
its 27th annual Folsom Street Fair, a celebration of fetishes and
(SFC, 9/27/10, p.C1)
2010 Sep 26, It was reported
that the Hilmar Cheese company in Merced County is the likely
culprit in ruining at least 18 wells in and around Hilmar. Partially
treated effluent from the 27-acre plant has been discharged onto
land around the plant for years.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 26, Gloria Stuart
(b.1910), film star, died. The 1930s Hollywood leading lady years
later became the oldest Academy Award acting nominee for her role as
the spunky survivor in "Titanic." In her youth, Stuart was a blond
beauty who starred in B pictures as well as some higher-profile ones
such as "The Invisible Man," Busby Berkeley's "Gold Diggers of 1935"
and two Shirley Temple movies, "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "Rebecca
of Sunnybrook Farm." Her 1999 autobiography was titled “Gloria
Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping."
(AP, 9/28/10)(SFC, 9/28/10, p.C4)
2010 Sep 26, Afghanistan's
election commission ordered a recount of votes in some areas for
recent parliamentary elections, raising further concerns of
misconduct and fraud during the Sep 18 polls. NATO said 2 of its
service members were killed in a bomb blast in the south. A female
British aid worker and 3 Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in the
country's northeastern Kunar province. NATO forces said one Afghan
civilian was killed by a coalition service member in Laghman's
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 26, Australian climate
change activists closed down operations at the world's largest coal
port after entering its three terminals and attaching themselves to
2010 Sep 26, British
businessman James Heselden (62), who last year bought the company
that makes the two-wheeled Segway personal transporter, died in an
accident on one of the vehicles in the River Wharfe near Boston Spa.
He had made a fortune through his firm Hesco Bastion which developed
a system replacing sand bags to protect troops.
2010 Sep 26, Chinese
authorities said five people have been sickened with pneumonic
plague in Tibet and that the deadly disease has killed one of them.
2010 Sep 26, A boat carrying
Jewish activists from Israel, Europe and the US set sail from Cyprus
bound for Gaza, in a bid to run Israel's blockade of the Palestinian
2010 Sep 26, In the Dominican
Republic a Dominican foreman fatally shot a Haitian worker during an
argument over pay, touching off racial clashes at a construction
site that killed a Dominican worker and injured another.
2010 Sep 26, In Germany a
Polish tour bus crashed on its way home from a Spanish holiday,
killing 13 people. 32 remained hospitalized the next day.
2010 Sep 26, Iranian officials
said the malicious Stuxnet computer worm has hit 30,000 industrial
computers, but denied the Islamic republic's first nuclear plant at
Bushehr was among those infected. The malware has infected as many
as 45,000 computer systems around the world. 60% of the infected
computers were in Iran, 18% in Indonesia, and less than 2% in the
US. Two computer servers in Malaysia and Denmark, which controlled
the malware, have been shut down.
2010 Sep 26, Iran media said
elite Revolutionary Guards said they had killed the "main elements"
behind the Sep 22 bomb attack in the Mahabad. Gen. Abdolrasoul
Mahmoudabadi of the elite Revolutionary Guards said the "terrorists"
were killed the previous day in a clash "beyond the border" and that
his forces were still in pursuit of two men who escaped the ambush.
(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, Iraq inaugurated
the first in a fleet of new US-built patrol boats, part of efforts
to boost its naval capacity and secure key oil platforms ahead of an
American withdrawal at the end of next year. A car packed with
explosives blew up near the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah,
killing 4 policemen in the latest sign that insurgents could be
trying to win back old strongholds. Attacks elsewhere in the country
killed at least 4 others.
(AFP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, With a midnight
deadline looming, Israel's PM Netanyahu called on West Bank settlers
to "show restraint" following the end of a government-ordered
construction slowdown. Settler leaders rejected Netanyahu's call,
however, and vowed to proceed with a symbolic groundbreaking
ceremony later in the day at Revava, a settlement deep inside the
West Bank, marking the end of the construction restrictions.
2010 Sep 26, Kashmiri
separatist leaders rejected India's offer to release hundreds of
young detainees and review the massive deployment of security forces
in the Himalayan territory to defuse deadly civil unrest.
2010 Sep 26, In Pakistan 2 US
drone strikes targeting vehicles killed 7 militants in North
Waziristan, the rugged tribal region near the Afghan border.
2010 Sep 25, A Russian Soyuz
space capsule landed in Kazakhstan returning 3 astronauts from a
6-month mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 26, The Saudi Gazette
quoted Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as saying: "Saudi Arabia is
tackling terrorism with all its might and authorities have so far
been successful in foiling 230 of 240 terrorist attempts." The
number covers the period from 2003 to the present.
2010 Sep 26, In Spain the
Basque separatist group ETA said it is willing to declare a
permanent cease-fire, verified by international observers, in a bid
to settle the troubled region's long-running conflict with the
2010 Sep 26, Venezuela’s
President Hugo Chavez was seeking to hold on to his dominant control
of congress in elections that put his popularity to a critical test.
Chavez's allies won a strong majority in Venezuela's congress, but
lost the two-thirds majority needed to carry out major changes on
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/27/10)
2011 Sep 26, The US Congress
finessed a dispute over disaster aid and advanced legislation to
avoid a partial government shutdown only days away.
2011 Sep 26, The US Postal
Service abandoned a long-standing rule that stamps cannot feature
people still living and asked the public for suggestions.
(SFC, 9/27/11, p.A8)
2011 Sep 26, In Nevada Arthur
Gerald Jones (73), a former Chicago commodities trader arrested in
July, pleaded guilty to fraud. He had disappeared over three decades
ago from Highland Park, Illinois, and was discovered living in Las
Vegas under the assumed name of Joseph Richard Sandelli.
2011 Sep 26, In Argentina an
explosion wrecked two homes, a business and several cars, killing a
woman and injuring nine people on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. A
search turned up a canister of natural gas with a poor connection to
a pizza oven.
2011 Sep 26, Australia opened
frontline combat roles to women for the first time in its history
under a new policy allowing all military positions to be filled on
merit rather than gender.
2011 Sep 26, Bolivia's defense
minister, Celicia Chacon, resigned in protest over a crackdown in
Indians protesting an Amazon highway they say will cause damage to
their lands. President Evo Morales says the 190-mile (300-km)
highway is essential for Bolivia's economy. It is to connect Brazil
with Pacific ports in Chile and Peru. President Evo Morale late in
the day suspended construction of the planned Amazon highway.
2011 Sep 26, A new British law,
the Prisoners' Earnings Act, went into effect. Inmates earning more
than £20 ($31, €23) a week after deductions will see 40% deducted
from what remains.
2011 Sep 26, Cambodian
officials said nearly 100 people have died in recent flooding with
100,000 families affected and some 100,000 acres of rice fields
(SFC, 9/27/11, p.A2)
2011 Sep 26, In China 2 Tibetan
monks, Lobsang Kalsang and Lobsang Konchok (believed to be 18 or 19
years old), set themselves on fire at the Kirti Monastery in a
protest over China's tight rein over Buddhist practices, as the
Chinese government reiterated it will choose the next Dalai Lama.
Both were rescued by police, suffered slight burns and were in
2011 Sep 26, In the Dominican
Rep. Roman Buchenauer (31), a German man, killed his Venezuelan
wife, Rosmery Rivas (29), a young daughter (9) and three family pets
and then hanged himself in an upscale residence in the tourist city
2011 Sep 26, Indian officials
said monsoon rains have destroyed mud huts and flooded wide swaths
of the north and east, killing at least 48 people in recent days and
leaving hundreds of thousands marooned by raging waters.
2011 Sep 26, In northern Iraq
roadside bomb killed 3 people in Kirkuk. Gunmen in Baghdad
assassinated a senior finance ministry official and wounded a senior
judge. Army Brig. Gen. Talib Balaasim was killed in a drive-by
shooting in western Baghdad. On May 15, 2012, bodyguards of Vice
President Tariq al-Hashemi testified that al-Hashemi told them to
kill Balaasim and paid $3,000 for the job.
(AP, 9/26/11)(SFC, 9/27/11, p.A2)(AP, 5/16/12)
2011 Sep 26, Undercover Israeli
police officers arrested Ahmed Abu Atoun, a Hamas lawmaker who had
been hiding in the Red Cross' office in east Jerusalem for the past
year. Lawmaker Mohammed Abu Teir was taken into custody earlier this
month after venturing out of the compound.
2011 Sep 26, Israel's national
museum and the international web giant Google led a project, that
put five Dead Sea scrolls online today. The scrolls include the
biblical Book of Isaiah.
2011 Sep 26, Italian oil giant
ENI said it has resumed oil production in Libya more than six months
after civil unrest brought oil and gas output in the country to a
2011 Sep 26, In
Indian-controlled Kashmir fierce fighting erupted between rebels and
government forces. 4 days of fighting left at least 9 people dead.
(AP, 9/28/11)(AFP, 9/29/11)
2011 Sep 26, Kuwaiti telecoms
giant Zain, currently negotiating to sell its operations in Saudi
Arabia, said it will challenge a court ruling that annulled the
election of its board of directors, adding that the verdict will
have no impact on its operations. A lower court a day earlier
scrapped an April election for Zain's board, saying it was legally
2011 Sep 26, Hundreds of Libyan
civilians fled Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte to escape growing
shortages of food and medicine and escalating fears that their homes
will be struck during fighting between revolutionary forces and
2011 Sep 26, Myanmar democracy
activists freshly tested the new government's avowed tolerance for
dissent by gathering peacefully at a central landmark in the
country's biggest city in honor of giant protests four years ago.
2011 Sep 26, Anglo-Dutch oil
group Shell said it has shut in 25,000 barrels per day of crude in a
southern Nigerian oil field due to spills caused by sabotage and
2011 Sep 26, In Northern
Ireland a failed car bomb, planted on a road junction in
Londonderry, snarled traffic until it was removed the next day.
Police arrested three suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents.
2011 Sep 26, Philippine
authorities evacuated more than 100,000 people, closed schools and
grounded flights as Typhoon Nesat, one of the biggest typhoons of
the year, bore down on the Southeast Asian country.
2011 Sep 26, In Portugal George
Wright (68), named as one of the hijackers of a Delta flight in
1972, was taken into custody by local police. The US government
sought his extradition for escaping from a New Jersey jail after
being convicted of murder. Wright was convicted of the 1962 murder
of gas station owner Walter Patterson, a decorated World War II
veteran shot during a robbery at his business in Wall, New Jersey.
In November a Lisbon court denied the US request for his
(AP, 9/28/11)(AP, 11/17/11)
2011 Sep 26, Russia’s
influential finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, was forced out after a
television confrontation with Pres. Dmitri Medvedev.
(SFC, 9/27/11, p.A2)
2011 Sep 26, Spain's PM
Zapatero dissolved Parliament, setting the stage for a Nov. 20
general election that is likely to focus on an economy saddled with
21 percent unemployment, anemic growth and gloomy future prospects.
2011 Sep 26, In Sudan police
fired tear gas and used batons to break up a protest in Khartoum
against the punitive rise in food prices, witnesses said, with
protesters burning tires and demanding cheaper food.
2011 Sep 26, In Yemen
anti-government tribesmen overran an army base housing an elite unit
north Sanaa, capturing 30 soldiers and dealing a blow to the
prestige of the powerful Republican Guards led by the son of the
country's embattled president.
2012 Sep 26, US defense
officials said Fort Bragg, NC, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair faces
possible courts martial on charges that include forced sex with
several female subordinates and fraudulent claims on a government
charge card. In 2014 Sinclair (51) pleaded guilty to less serious
counts of misconduct in a deal that included the dropping of sexual
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.A7)(SFC, 3/6/14, p.A8)(SFC,
2012 Sep 26, California Gov.
Jerry Brown signed a bill banning the use of dogs for hunting bears
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.C1)
2012 Sep 26, The Univ. of
California agreed to $1 million legal settlement with students
pepper sprayed by police during a protest last November. 21 students
will receive about $30,000 each and a written apology from the
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.C3)
2012 Sep 26, In Oregon hog
farmer Terry Vance Garner (69) never returned after he set out to
feed his animals on his farm in Coos County. A family member found
Garner's dentures and pieces of his body in the hog enclosure
several hours later, but most of his remains had been consumed.
2012 Sep 26, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide attack on a NATO patrol killed two service
members in the U.S.-led coalition in Logar province.
2012 Sep 26, Radical Islamist
cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri (54) won a delay in his extradition from
Britain to the United States, days after he lost an appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights.
2012 Sep 26, Germany's top
administrative court ruled that Catholics who opt out of paying
religious taxes must automatically leave the church as well.
Germany's bishops announced last week that believers who refuse to
pay the tax are committing a "grave lapse" and as a result won't be
able to receive the sacrament, become godparents or have a religious
2012 Sep 26, Greek police
clashed with hooded rioters hurling petrol bombs as tens of
thousands took to the streets of Athens in a general strike in
Greece's biggest anti-austerity protest in more than a year.
(Reuters, 9/26/12)(Economist, 9/29/12, p.57)
2012 Sep 26, Guinea officials
said two-thirds of the country's foreign debt is going to be
canceled. The move came after Guinea qualified for heavily indebted
poor country status, meaning that more than $2.4 billion of its debt
now will be cancelled.
2012 Sep 26, In western India
17 bus passengers died when their vehicle plunged into the Purna
river in Maharashtra state.
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 26, In Indonesia a
passenger ferry collided with a ship believed to be carrying
liquefied natural gas and sank west of Sumatra island, killing at
least eight people.
2012 Sep 26, Mexican troops
clashed with an armed group near a church in the southern town of
Tepecoacuilco de Trujano, leaving 11 people dead, including a
soldier and one woman.
2012 Sep 26, Mexicans took to
the streets to protest a new law aimed at modernizing rules in the
workplace and making the country’s powerful, corrupt unions more
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 26, Saudi Arabian
authorities were reported holding 908 female Nigerian pilgrims
heading to Mecca over a rule requiring them to travel with a husband
or male companion.
(SFC, 9/27/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 26, South Africa’s
AngloGold Ashanti said that it has halted all its operations in the
country in response to persistent strikes. It provided 32 percent of
the multinational's gold production.
(AP, 9/26/12)(Economist, 9/29/12, p.53)
2012 Sep 26, In Madrid
thousands of angry protesters again swarmed as close as they could
get night to Parliament, watched by a heavy contingent of riot
police. There was no fresh violence. They demanded the release of
people detained the previous evening and new elections to oust PM
Mariano Rajoy and his conservative government, which has imposed
cutbacks and tax hikes, deepening the gloom in a country struggling
with recession and unemployment of nearly 25 percent.
2012 Sep 26, The leaders of
Sudan and South Sudan reached nine agreements but did not work out
the issues surrounding the contested Abyei region or the demarcation
of their shared border. South Sudan President Salva Kiir said the
two countries would sign a "protocol of collaboration" on Sep 27.
2012 Sep 26, In Syria two
massive explosions targeting the regime's military command center
were set off by two suicide car bombers killing four people. An
Iranian correspondent was killed while covering the blasts in
2012 Sep 26, A Turkish court
issued an order allowing authorities in the country to block
Internet access to the "Innocence of Muslims," an anti-Islam movie
that has sparked violent protests across the Muslim world.
2013 Sep 26, The US and its
international partners emerged from a meeting at UN headquarters
with Iran declaring that a "window of opportunity has opened" to
peacefully settle their nuclear standoff. Both sides agreed to
fast-track negotiations and hold a substantive round of talks on
Oct. 15-16 in Geneva.
2013 Sep 26, Sarah Fulton, a
lawyer for the rights watchdog Redress, said Mustafa al-Hawsawi,
currently being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was secretly brought
to Lithuania in March 2004 and held there until September 2006.
Activists urged authorities to re-open an investigation into
possible rendition in the Baltic state.
2013 Sep 26, An Afghan man
wearing the uniform of the country's security forces turned his
weapon on NATO troops in Paktia province, killing a US service
member of the international coalition.
(AP, 9/26/13)(SFC, 9/27/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 26, Interpol issued an
arrest notice on behalf of Kenyan authorities for Samantha
Lewthwaite (29), a Muslim convert and fugitive Briton whom news
media have dubbed the "white widow." Her first husband was one of
the suicide bombers in the 2005 attack on the London transit system
that killed 52 commuters. She was wanted by Kenyan authorities over
alleged involvement in a plot to bomb holiday resorts.
2013 Sep 26, In China the
teenage son of two celebrity singers for the Chinese military was
convicted of rape and sentenced to 10 years in prison, in a case the
public closely watched for signs of leniency because of his family
2013 Sep 26, The Dominican
Republic's Constitutional Court stripped citizenship from thousands
of people born to migrants who came illegally, a category that
overwhelmingly includes Haitians brought in to work on farms. The
court retroactively stripped the citizenship of people born after
1929 to parents without Dominican ancestry.
(AP, 9/26/13)(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A22)
2013 Sep 26, Dubai said that it
has signed a memorandum of understanding with China Sonangol to
build a crude oil refinery aimed at meeting rising domestic demand.
2013 Sep 26, In Kenya al-Shabab
fighters attacked the border town of Mandera, killing two police
officers, injuring three others and destroying 11 vehicles.
2013 Sep 26, In India militants
dressed in army uniforms attacked police and soldiers near the
border with Pakistan, killing 9 people, including 3 militants, and
triggering calls for talks at the UN between the prime ministers of
the rival nations to be called off.
2013 Sep 26, The Indian army
said it had killed at least a dozen militants from a group of 30 it
said had crossed over from Pakistan into northern Kashmir.
2013 Sep 26, In Iraq bombings
hit two markets in Baghdad province, killing at least 23 people,
while gunmen shot dead 5 members of one family south of the capital.
A magnetic "sticky bomb" on a car killed a policeman and wounded two
civilians in the northern city of Mosul. A similar device killed an
employee of a local television station and wounded a second in
Baquba. In Kirkuk a bomb killed a man and wounded his brother, while
2 alleged Al-Qaeda militants were shot dead by gunmen west of the
(AFP, 9/26/13)(SFC, 9/27/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 26, Charles Taylor
lost his appeal against a war crimes conviction at The Hague. Judges
confirmed a 50-year jail term against the former Liberian president
for encouraging rebels in Sierra Leone to mutilate, rape and murder
victims in a decade-long civil war.
2013 Sep 26, In Lithuania the
10th edition of the Vilnius Intl. Theater Festival opened.
(SSFC, 9/8/13, p.N3)
2013 Sep 26, Nepal recalled its
ambassador to Qatar after she compared the Middle Eastern emirate to
an "open jail" for thousands of Nepali migrants who face abuse from
2013 Sep 26, In northeastern
Nigeria Islamic militants armed with automatic rifles and explosives
killed a pastor and his son and torched a church. The attackers also
killed the village head at Dorawa, Yobe state.
2013 Sep 26, Norwegian oil
group Statoil said it had made a big oil find off the coast of
Newfoundland in Canada with 300 million to 600 million barrels of
2013 Sep 26, Pakistan's first
online platform for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender
people, said it has been shut by Pakistan's telecoms authority. It
had opened in July, a move hailed as a step forward for the
2013 Sep 26, In Pakistan the
death toll from the Sep 24 earthquake climbed to 355 as survivors
complained that aid was not reaching far-flung areas.
2013 Sep 26, A Russian court
ordered two Greenpeace activists to be detained for two months over
a protest on an Arctic oil platform, as the Netherlands called for
the activists' immediate release and threatened legal action against
2013 Sep 26, A Soyuz capsule
carrying three astronauts successfully docked with the International
Space Station, bringing the size of the crew at the orbiting outpost
2013 Sep 26, Sudanese
authorities deployed troops around vital installations and gas
stations in Khartoum as rioting continued over gas price hikes with
30 people left dead since Sep 23.
(SFC, 9/27/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 26, In Sudan’s Darfur
region fighting resumed in the southwest between Arab tribes
reportedly leaving 51 people dead and 65 injured in the Umm Dukhun
2013 Sep 26, In Syria an Iraqi
woman was killed when a mortar round slammed into Iraq's consulate
2013 Sep 26, Tunisian rapper
Klay BBJ was jailed for six months for songs judged insulting by the
authorities, a verdict his supporters slammed as a sign of the
Islamist-led government's growing intolerance. On Oct 17 Klay BBJ
was acquitted by an appeals court.
(AFP, 9/26/13)(AFP, 10/17/13)
014 Sep 26, In Arizona the
Navajo Nation held a signing ceremony for a $554 milion settlement
of a 2006 lawsuit over federal government mismanagement of tribal
(SFC, 9/26/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 26, In Illinois Brian
Howard (36), an FAA contract employee, set fire at the Aurora air
traffic control center bringing Chicago’s Midway and O’Hare airports
to a halt with over 2,000 flights cancelled. On May 28, 2015, Howard
pleaded guilty to setting the fire during a failed suicide attempt.
(SFC, 9/27/14, p.A7)(SFC, 9/29/14, p.A6)(SFC,
2014 Sep 26, John Mack Carter
(86), former editor of McCalls, Ladies Home Journal and Good
Housekeeping (1975-1994) magazines, died in Bronxville, NY.
(SSFC, 9/28/14, p.C12)
2014 Sep 26, In Oklahoma 4
women’s softball players from North Texas Central College were
killed when an 18-wheel truck crashed into the side of their team
(SSFC, 9/28/14, p.A15)
2014 Sep 26, Intel said it will
pay up to $1.5 billion for a 20 percent stake in a Chinese venture
that will design and make Intel-branded chips for mobile phones and
2014 Sep 26, The International
Monetary Fund fast-tracked $130 million (102.5 million euros) in aid
to fight the Ebola epidemic after the governments of the worst-hit
countries in west Africa said they were desperately counting on
promises of global aid to be backed up with cash.
2014 Sep 26, Latin American and
European countries united to push a resolution on ending violence
against homosexuals through the UN Human Rights Council, despite
strong opposition from Islamic and African states.
2014 Sep 26, Afghan officials
said Taliban fighters have stormed Ajrestan, a strategic district in
Ghazni province and were on the verge of capturing it. The attack by
an estimated 700 Taliban fighters began about five days ago and
early reports were that more than 100 people had been killed.
2014 Sep 26, Australia and
Cambodia signed an agreement for asylum-seekers, who are refused
residency in Australia and currently held in Nauru, to instead be
resettled to Cambodia criticized for its deteriorating human rights
(AP, 9/26/14)(Econ, 10/4/14, p.48)
2014 Sep 26, China's top
anti-graft body said Gao Jianyun, a senior internet regulator, has
been expelled from the ruling Communist Party on graft charges.
2014 Sep 26, In China a man
fatally stabbed four students as they were walking to their
elementary school in Lingshan County, Guanxi province. Police
searched for 56-year-old suspect who attacked the children from a
motorcycle. 6 schoolchildren died and 25 were injured in a stampede
at the Mingtong Primary School in the southern city of Kunming.
2014 Sep 26, Cuba notified
Ontario-based Tokmakjian Group that its president, Cy Tokmakjian
(74) has been sentenced to 15 years in Cuban prison on
corruption-related charge. Tokmakjian Group said the charges against
its president were concocted as an excuse to seize the automotive
firm's $100 million in assets in Cuba.
2014 Sep 26, Danish PM Helle
Thorning-Schmidt said her government would send four operational
planes and three reserve jets along with 250 pilots and support
staff in the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq. The
deployment will last for 12 months.
2014 Sep 26, European Union
leaders said a major trade agreement with Canada has the backing of
all 28 EU countries after last minute opposition from Germany had
threatened to scuttle the deal.
2014 Sep 26, The head of
Interpol, based in Lyon, France, said an international database of
foreign would-be jihadis joining extremists in Iraq and Syria that
started 18 months ago with little fanfare, and just three countries
participating, has expanded to include 33 countries and 1,300 names.
2014 Sep 26, In Guinea-Bissau
at least 22 people were killed when a vehicle taking them to a
funeral struck a landmine.
2014 Sep 26, Indonesia's
outgoing parliament voted to scrap direct elections for local
officials and return to the electoral system in place under dictator
Suharto, triggering anger at what many regarded as a grave setback
to democracy at the hands of an entrenched political elite.
2014 Sep 26, Indonesian
authorities arrested Hans Peter Naumann (48), a German man, for
allegedly trying to smuggle 239 (8.4 ounce) of cocaine onto
Indonesia's resort island of Bali, some of it hidden inside his
2014 Sep 26, Islamic State
fighters tightened their siege of the strategic town of Kobani on
Syria's border with Turkey, pushing back Kurdish forces and sending
at least two shells into Turkish territory.
2014 Sep 26, Morocco and Spain
said a cross-border cell in the Spanish enclave of Melilla and the
neighboring Moroccan city of Nador to recruit jihadis to fight for
the Islamic State group has been dismantled.
2014 Sep 26, In Serbia 3 Gypsy
children died in a fire in a small wooden shack that has been their
home on the outskirts of Belgrade.
2014 Sep 26, Somali al Shabaab
militants stoned a woman to death in the southern town of Barawe
after a court they had set up declared her guilty of adultery.
2014 Sep 26, Human Rights Watch
said in a report that torture of political prisoners is widespread
in ex-Soviet Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country courted by the West
as a transit point for forces fighting in Afghanistan.