On September 26, 1960, for the first time in U.S. history, a
debate between major party presidential candidates was
broadcast on live television. The presidential hopefuls,
John F. Kennedy, a Democratic senator of Massachusetts,
and Richard M. Nixon, the vice president of the United States,
met in a Chicago studio to discuss U.S. domestic matters.

Kennedy emerged the apparent winner from this first of
four televised debates.

John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon

    
Tim Maguire

The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike was the eighth and
longest work stoppage in baseball history, as well as the fourth
in-season work stoppage in 22 years. The strike began on
August 12, 1994, and resulted in the remainder of that season,
including the postseason and the World Series, being canceled.

This was the first time in ninety years, since 1904, that a World
Series was not played. The strike was suspended on April 2,
1995, after 232 days, making it the longest such stoppage in
MLB history and the longest work stoppage in major league.

On September 3, 1939, in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland,
Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war
on Germany.

The first casualty of that declaration was not German—but the
British ocean liner Athenia, which was sunk by a German U-30
submarine that had assumed the liner was armed and belligerent.

There were more than 1,100 passengers on board, 112 of whom
lost their lives. Of those, 28 were Americans, but President
Roosevelt was unfazed by the tragedy, declaring that no one
was to “thoughtlessly or falsely talk of America sending its
armies to European fields.” The United States would remain
neutral.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945)

British ocean liner SS Athenia was sunk when a torpedo
from the German submarine U-30 sank her in the Western Approaches.

The modern United States received its crowning star when
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation
admitting (Native spelling: Hawai‘i) into the Union as the
50th state on this day in 1959.

 
CAMILLE BOHANNON

Voyager 2 launched by a Titan-Centaur rocket.