TIM MAGUIRE

The first televised debate between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon
and John F. Kennedy took place in Chicago, IL on this day in 1960.

On this day in 1980, the Cuban government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor to
end the freedom flotilla of Cuban refugees that began the previous April.

On this day in 1957, the musical "West Side Story" opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. 

George Jacob Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937)

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin’s compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most
popular melodies are widely known. Among his best-known works are
the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American
in Paris (1928) as well as the opera Porgy and Bess (1935).

Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) 

T.S. Eliot was a British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social
critic, and "one of the twentieth century’s major poets".  Eliot attracted
widespread attention for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
(1915), which was seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement.