1934 Sep 26, The British liner Queen Mary was launched.
1973 Sep 26, Anna Magnani (b.1908), Academy Award winning Italian actress, died in Rome.

1978 Sep 26, NY District Court Judge Constance Baker Motley ruled that women sportswriters cannot be banned from NYC sports locker rooms.

1979 Sep 26, The body of a young woman was found in Blackie’s Pasture in Tiburon, Ca., She had been stabbed over 40 times with an ice pick and burned. In 2007 DNA evidence identified her as Tammy Vincent (17). She had testified this year against several people arrested during a raid in SeaTac, Wash., of 2 establishments believed to be prostitution fronts.

1996 Sep 26, Patricia Billings, amateur sculptor and med tech, demonstrated her fire-proof material GeoBond. It was made of gypsum, cement, and a secret off-the-shelf ingredient that in combination would not burn even under flames over 2,000 degrees.

2005 Sep 26, Cindy Sheehan (48), the California mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, was arrested along with a number of others for demonstrating against the war in Iraq in front of the White House without a permit. 40 people were arrested for demonstrating at the Pentagon.


2010 Sep 26, Gloria Stuart (b.1910), film star, died. The 1930s Hollywood leading lady years later became the oldest Academy Award acting nominee for her role as the spunky survivor in "Titanic." In her youth, Stuart was a blond beauty who starred in B pictures as well as some higher-profile ones such as "The Invisible Man," Busby Berkeley's "Gold Diggers of 1935" and two Shirley Temple movies, "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." Her 1999 autobiography was titled “Gloria Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping."

2011 Sep 26, Russia’s influential finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, was forced out after a television confrontation with Pres. Dmitri Medvedev.

2012 Sep 26, Saudi Arabian authorities were reported holding 908 female Nigerian pilgrims heading to Mecca over a rule requiring them to travel with a husband or male companion.

2013 Sep 26, Interpol issued an arrest notice on behalf of Kenyan authorities for Samantha Lewthwaite (29), a Muslim convert and fugitive Briton whom news media have dubbed the "white widow." Her first husband was one of the suicide bombers in the 2005 attack on the London transit system that killed 52 commuters. She was wanted by Kenyan authorities over alleged involvement in a plot to bomb holiday resorts.

2013 Sep 26, In Syria an Iraqi woman was killed when a mortar round slammed into Iraq's consulate in Damascus.

2014 Sep 26, In Oklahoma 4 women’s softball players from North Texas Central College were killed when an 18-wheel truck crashed into the side of their team bus
2014 Sep 26, Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt said her government would send four operational planes and three reserve jets along with 250 pilots and support staff in the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq. The deployment will last for 12 months.