Today in History September 26

September 26 is the 269th day of the year. There are 96 days remaining until the end of the year.

The Beatles in 1964
Top: Lennon, McCartney
Bottom: Harrison, StarrAdd caption

Today's Highlight in History; 1969 – Abbey Road, the last recorded album by The Beatles, is released.

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool, in 1960. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential rock and roll, stars of 1950s.

The Beatles later experimented with several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as their songwriting grew in sophistication they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era's sociocultural revolutions.


Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album released by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom and on 1 October 1969 in the United States. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band's dissolution in April 1970, most of that album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began. A double A-side single from the album, "Something"/"Come Together", released in October, topped the Billboard chart in the US.

Studio album by The Beatles 
Released 26 September 1969 
Recorded 22 February – 20 August 1969; EMI,Olympic and Trident Studios(London) 

World Events

BC – Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix in accordance with a vow he made at the battle of Pharsalus.

1371 – Serbian–Turkish wars: The forces of the Ottoman sultan Murad I's lieutenant Lala Şahin Pasha and the Serbian army under the command of Vukašin Mrnjavčević and Jovan Uglješa clash at the Battle of Maritsa.

1493 – Pope Alexander VI issues the papal bull Dudum siquidem to the Catholic Monarchs, extending the grant of new lands he made them inInter caetera

1580 – Sir Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth.

1687 – The Parthenon in Athens is partially destroyed by an explosion caused by the bombing from Venetian forces led by Morosini who are besieging the Ottoman Turks stationed in Athens.

1687 – The city council of Amsterdam votes to support William of Orange's invasion of England, which became the Glorious Revolution.

1789 – Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood is appointed the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph is appointed the first United States Attorney General.

1792 – Marc-David Lasource begins accusing Maximilien Robespierre of wanting a dictatorship for France.

1907 – New Zealand and Newfoundland each become dominions within the British Empire.

1910 – Indian journalist Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai is arrested after publishing criticism of the government of Travancore and exiled.

1917 – World War I: The Battle of Polygon Wood begins.

1933 – Ten convicts escape from the Indiana State Prison with guns smuggled into the prison by bank robber John Dillinger

1942 – The Holocaust: August Frank, a higher official of the SS concentration camp administration department, issues a memorandum containing a great deal of operational detail in how Jews should be "evacuated"..

1950 – Indonesia is admitted to the United Nations.

1954 – Japanese rail ferry Tōya Maru sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, Japan killing 1,172.

1959 – Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall, killing 4,580 people and leaving nearly 1.6 million others homeless.

1960 – In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

1969 – Abbey Road, the last recorded album by The Beatles, is released.

1971 – The Freetown Christiania was founded.

1973 – Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.

1984 – The United Kingdom agrees to the handover of Hong Kong

1997 – An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse.

2000 – Anti-globalization protests in Prague (some 20,000 protesters) turn violent during the IMF and World Bank summits.

2002 – The overcrowded Senegalese ferry MV Le Joola capsizes off the coast of the Gambia killing more than 1,000.

2008 – Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel.

2009 – Typhoon Ketsana hit the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, causing 700 fatalities.