--- title: Presidential Debate: Timing Is Perfect for History description: September 26—when Clinton and Trump will first debate—is a big day in the history of presidential debates canonical: https://time.com/4499942/presidential-debate-timing-1960-2016/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-26T12:30:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:41:32.301Z article:section: History og:title: Presidential Debate: Timing Is Perfect for History og:description: September 26 is a big day in the history of presidential debates og:url: https://time.com/4499942/presidential-debate-timing-1960-2016/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24c4191866e4f3e3/6988a6b60b72e3f58b6eb0db/1960.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Debate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Presidential Debate: Timing Is Perfect for History twitter:description: September 26 is a big day in the history of presidential debates twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24c4191866e4f3e3/6988a6b60b72e3f58b6eb0db/1960.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why the Timing Is Perfect for This Year's First Presidential Debate  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 26, 2016 12:30 PM UTC  1960 White House candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon appeared in this and three later face-to-face debates aired nationally on television and radio. 1960 White House candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon appeared in this and three later face-to-face debates aired nationally on television and radio.CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 26, 2016 12:30 PM UTC When Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump [meet](http://time.com/4471573/debate-advice-for-donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton/) on Monday evening, it will be for the [first](http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=2016debates) of the 2016 televised presidential [debates](http://time.com/4477608/presidential-debate-moderators-2016/). The date was [announced](http://www.debates.org/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=57&cntnt01origid=15&cntnt01detailtemplate=newspage&cntnt01returnid=80) about a year ago, and it’s an important one: It was on this [exact](http://debates.org/index.php?page=september-26-1960-debate-transcript) day in 1960—Sept. 26—that John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon took place in the first-ever televised presidential debate. That debate is also widely seen as one of the most important in presidential history. Kennedy [looked great](http://time.com/26035/kennedy-nixon-debates-1960-the-tv-landmark-that-changed-the-game/) on television; Nixon did not. In fact, as Jon Meacham has [noted](http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/08/what-history-tells-us-about-obamas-chances-now/), Nixon looked so bad that his mother called him to ask whether he was sick. The following week’s issue of TIME also mentioned one Republican-leaning newspaper that floated the conspiracy [theory](http://time.com/vault/issue/1960-10-10/page/22/) that Nixon was “sabotaged by TV makeup artist.” Kennedy, of course, went on to win. Though some experts dispute how much Kennedy’s impressive debate showing won him the election, there’s [no question](http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2021078,00.html) that the day did change the media equation for future campaigns. “Kennedy’s street crowds also got bigger—and more enthusiastic,” TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1960-10-10/page/22/) in 1960 of the shifting election narrative. “Before the debate newsmen had amused themselves by counting ‘jumpers’ in the crowds—women who hopped up and down at the sight of their handsome hero. Now they noted ‘double jumpers’ (jumpers with babies in their arms). By week’s end they even spotted a few ‘leapers’ who reached prodigious heights.” In fact, the debate made such a huge difference that candidates [shied away](http://time.com/vault/issue/2008-09-29/page/24/) from the televised format for decades after, until Gerald Ford [brought the idea back](http://time.com/4499958/gerald-ford-debate-history/) in 1976\. Today, the idea that a candidate must be camera-ready—at a debate or anywhere else—is taken as a given. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) Whether Clinton and Trump make history on Monday remains to be seen, but even by stepping on the stage they are participating in a tradition that began exactly 56 years ago. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4499942/presidential-debate-timing-1960-2016/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4499942/presidential-debate-timing-1960-2016/"},"headline":"Why the Timing Is Perfect for This Year's First Presidential Debate","datePublished":"2016-09-26T12:30:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:41:32.301Z","description":"September 26 is a big day in the history of presidential debates","url":"https://time.com/4499942/presidential-debate-timing-1960-2016/","keywords":["politics","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election topic","John F. Kennedy","Richard Nixon","Donald Trump","Debates"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24c4191866e4f3e3/6988a6b60b72e3f58b6eb0db/1960.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24c4191866e4f3e3/6988a6b60b72e3f58b6eb0db/1960.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Debate","caption":"Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Debate","creditText":"CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4499942/presidential-debate-timing-1960-2016/","name":"Why the Timing Is Perfect for This Year's First Presidential Debate"}}]}] ```