Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/September 26
This is a list of selected September 26 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
September 26: International Day of Quds (Iran, 2008); Dominion Day in New Zealand; European Day of Languages
- 1580 – The Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth, England, as Francis Drake (statue pictured) completed his circumnavigation of the globe.
- 1810 – The Riksdag of the Estates adopted a new Act of Succession to regulate the right of members of the House of Bernadotte to accede to the Swedish throne.
- 1907 – Newfoundland and New Zealand became dominions within the British Empire.
- 1957 – West Side Story, a musical based loosely on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that was written by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and produced and directed by Jerome Robbins, made its debut on Broadway.
- 1983 – Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union averted a possible worldwide nuclear war by deliberately certifying what otherwise appeared to be an impending attack by the United States as a false alarm.