September 26, 1990: Italian author Alberto Moravia dies

Italian author Alberto Moravia dies

1990 - Alberto Moravia, who towered over Italian literary life over the past half-century, died suddenly in Rome, apparently of a stroke or a heart attack. He was 83. He was Italy’s best-known writer overseas, with translations in 35 languages. Moravia was 22, fighting tuberculosis in an Alpine spa, when his first novel, Gli Imlifferenti (The Indifferent), a scathing dissection of bourgeois society that ignored the current fashion of Fascist bombast, propelled him to instant fame in 1929. He went on to write a dozen novels, six plays, 14 collections of short stories, three travel books and a number of journalistic and topical essays. He was also elected in 1983 to the European parliament as an independent on the Communist Party list.

September 26

1772 - The first US law to license medical practitioners is passed in New Jersey.

1777 - British troops occupy Philadelphia during the American Revolution.

1789 - Thomas Jefferson is appointed America’s first Secretary of State and John Jay the first chief justice of US.

1918 - Allies launch offensive that eventually breaks Germany’s Hindenburg Line in First World War.

1950 - UN forces recapture Seoul.

1954 - An estimated 1,168 people die when the ferryboat Toya Maru capsizes off Hokkaido Island near Japan.

1962 - Imam Badr is driven from power in Yemen, ending a more than 1,000-year-old dynasty.

1983 - Australia II wins America’s Cup yachting series off Newport, Rhode Island.

1984 - Britain and China ink agreement that will return Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.

1988 - Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is stripped of his gold medal in the 100 metres at the Seoul Olympics after failing a drugs test.

1997 - An Indonesian airliner crashes as it approaches an airport on the smog-hit island of Sumatra and bursts into flames, killing all 234 people on board.

1999 - The US rallies dramatically to win back the Ryder Cup for the first time in three tries.

2002 - An ocean ferry capsizes off the coast of Gambia in the Atlantic Ocean, en route to Dakar, Senegal, killing about 1,034 people.

2006 - Romania and Bulgaria win clearance to join the European Union in 2008.

2006 - Shinzo Abe is Japan’s youngest post-war Prime Minister at 52.

2011 - Emirati footballer Diab Awana is killed in a road accident in Abu Dhabi.