Explore 26 September

Explore 26 September: the Parthenon is shattered, Drake completes his voyage round the world, New Zealand becomes a dominion, West Side Story opens and Stanislav Petrov keeps the peace. Meet T. S. Eliot, George Gershwin and Serena Williams, born on this date.

This day through time →9 verified events across 2 eras

⌛9Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙6Born
Today ✦4Lives
Remembered ♫2Culture
Stories

The Parthenon, Athens.

Image credit

Steve Swayne · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

1687

The Parthenon is shattered

On the night of 26 September 1687, during the Ottoman-Venetian war, a shell fired by the forces of the Venetian commander Francesco Morosini hit gunpowder stored inside the Parthenon, which the Ottomans had converted into a magazine after it had been made a mosque.

The explosion blew out all the interior walls except the east side, and columns and half the metopes collapsed on the north and south sides. Morosini then damaged the west pediment sculptures in an unsuccessful attempt to remove them.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Acropolis Museum: Francesco Morosini ↗

Sir Francis Drake, in a 1583 portrait by Jodocus Hondius.

Image credit

Jodocus Hondius I · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1580

Drake completes his voyage round the world

Francis Drake arrived back at Plymouth on 26 September 1580 in the Golden Hind, completing his circumnavigation of the globe after two years and nine and a half months. He was only the second commander to do it, after Magellan’s expedition.

The ship was laden with treasure and spices taken from the Spanish, Drake’s fortune was made, and he was knighted on the deck of the Golden Hind in April 1581.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Sir Francis Drake ↗

Stanislav Petrov.

Image credit

Queery-54 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1983

Stanislav Petrov judges the alarm false

On 26 September 1983 Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, was in command overnight at the Serpukhov-15 bunker when the early-warning satellite system reported five incoming American missiles. He judged it a false alarm, reasoning that a real attack would use far more than five.

The satellites had mistaken sunlight reflecting off high clouds for missile launches. Petrov was reprimanded for not following protocol, but his calm is credited with helping to prevent a nuclear war.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Stanislav Petrov ↗

Sir Joseph Ward, the prime minister who read the proclamation.

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Muir & Moodie · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1907

New Zealand becomes a dominion

On 26 September 1907 the colony of New Zealand became the Dominion of New Zealand within the British Empire. The prime minister, Sir Joseph Ward, read the proclamation from the steps of Parliament in Wellington, and government offices closed for the day.

The change was mostly one of name and status: New Zealand was no more and no less independent of Britain than before. For a few years 26 September was celebrated as Dominion Day with parades and concerts, but the custom soon faded.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NZHistory (Ministry for Culture and Heritage): Dominion status ↗

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PEOPLE

Born Today

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Thomas Stearns Eliot with his sister and his cousin by Lady Ottoline Morrell.jpg: Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938) derivative work: Octave.H · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1888

T. S. Eliot

American-born British poet, author of The Waste Land, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

Image credit

Willy Pragher · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1889

Martin Heidegger

German philosopher, author of Being and Time.

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Fotografia Felici · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1897

Pope Paul VI

Pope from 1963 to 1978, who brought the Second Vatican Council to its close.

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Carl Van Vechten · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1898

George Gershwin

American composer of Rhapsody in Blue and the opera Porgy and Bess.

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World Economic Forum · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1932

Manmohan Singh

Indian economist and statesman, prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014.

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AndrewHenkelman · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1981

Serena Williams

American tennis player who won 23 Grand Slam singles titles.

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Abbey Road Studios in London, where the album was recorded.

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Abbey Road Studios · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1969

The Beatles release Abbey Road

The Beatles’ album Abbey Road was released in the UK on 26 September 1969. It was the last album the band recorded together, though Let It Be, mostly recorded earlier, came out in May 1970.

The sleeve photograph, taken by Iain Macmillan on 8 August 1969 at the zebra crossing outside the studios, became one of the best-known images in pop.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Abbey Road ↗

Carol Lawrence as Maria (right) with Marilyn Cooper, Carmen Gutierrez and Elizabeth Taylor in ‘I Feel Pretty’, 1957. Photo by Fred Fehl.

Image credit

Photo by Fred Fehl, New York. · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1957

West Side Story opens on Broadway

West Side Story opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York on 26 September 1957, after a try-out run in Philadelphia. The musical moved Romeo and Juliet to the streets of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where two gangs clash over territory and prejudice.

It was the work of Leonard Bernstein (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), Arthur Laurents (book) and Jerome Robbins, who directed and choreographed. The original production ran for 732 performances, and the 1961 film version won ten Academy Awards.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Library of Congress: West Side Story, birth of a classic ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED