Today in History: September 26

1789: John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States.  He’ll later resign the post to take the more important post of Governor of New York.

1810: French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the son of a provincial French lawyer adopted as a son by King Charles XII of Sweden, becomes heir to the Swedish throne when the Riksdag passes a new Law of Succession.

1889: Philosopher Martin Heidegger is born at Messkirch in Germany.  He’s been cited in more than 600 law review articles, even though hardly anyone really understands what he’s talking about.

1914: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is established.

1914: Francois Henri “Jack” LaLanne is born at San Francisco, California.  In 1936, at age 21, he’ll open his first gym and will go on to create the modern fitness industry.

1957: At the Winter Garden Theater in New York, Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story introduces audiences to gang members who stab people but never swear.

1991: Eight volunteers enter the $150 million Biosphere II in Oracle, Arizona, to see if it can sustain them in a hermetically sealed environment.  It can’t.