July 26

July 26 is the 207th day (208th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 158 days remaining.

Events

• 1139 – Afonso, then a count, is procclaimed first king of Portugal and declares independence from Castile
• 1469 – Battle of Edgecote Moor
• 1581 – Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Oath of Abjuration). The declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II.
• 1775 – The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department was established by the Second Continental Congress and Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General.
• 1788 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 11th state of the United States.
• 1803 – the Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London.
• 1822 – Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín meet in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
• 1847 – Liberia gains independence.
• 1861 – American Civil War: George McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Morgan's Raid ends – At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces.
• 1878 – In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box will be found later with a taunting poem inside.
• 1887 – L. L. Zamenhof publishes "Dr. Esperanto's International Language".
• 1908 – United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).
• 1936 – The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War
• 1941 – World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.
• 1945 – General election results in the United Kingdom are announced; The Labour Party wins 48% of the vote and a Parliamentary majority of 146 seats (the largest in post-war British history). This is in spite of Conservative Party leader Winston Churchill's popularity.
• 1945  – The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.
• 1947 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
• 1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.
• 1948 – André Marie becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
• 1956 – Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.
• 1958 – Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.
• 1963 – Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.
• 1963 – Earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia – 1800 dead
• 1966 – Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent.
• 1968 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.
• 1971 – Apollo program: Launch of Apollo 15.
• 1989 – A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
• 1991 – Paul Reubens, better known as Pee Wee Herman, is arrested for allegedly exposing himself at a Sarasota, Florida adult theatre.
• 1991  – Sonic the Hedgehog is released for the Sega Megadrive in Japan

Births

• 1030 – Stanislaus of Szczepanów, St. Stanislaw (d. 1079)
• 1782 – John Field, Irish composer (d. 1837)
• 1791 – Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, composer (d. 1844)
• 1802 – Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (d. 1855)
• 1856 – George Bernard Shaw, author, playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1925 (d. 1950)
• 1865 – Philipp Scheidemann, politician (d. 1939)
• 1874 – Serge Koussevitsky, Russian conductor (d. 1951)
• 1875 – Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1961)
• 1875 – Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (d. 1939)
• 1892 – Sad Sam Jones, Major League Baseball player (d. 1966)
• 1894 – Aldous Huxley, author (d. 1963)
• 1897 – Paul Gallico, author (d. 1976)
• 1902 – Gracie Allen, actress, comedienne (d. 1964)
• 1903 – Estes Kefauver, U.S. Senator from Tennessee (d. 1963)
• 1908 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile (d. 1973)
• 1909 – Vivian Vance, actress (d. 1979)
• 1920 – Bob Waterfield, American football player (d. 1983)
• 1921 – Jean Shepherd, writer (d. 1999)
• 1922 – Blake Edwards, film director
• 1922  – Jason Robards, actor (d. 2000)
• 1923 – Hoyt Wilhelm, Major League Baseball player (d. 2002)
• 1928 – Stanley Kubrick, movie director (d. 1999)
• 1928  – Francesco Cossiga, eighth President of Italy
• 1939 – John Howard, twenty-fifth Prime Minister of Australia
• 1939  – Bob Lilly, American football player
• 1940 – Mary Jo Kopechne, aide to Robert F. Kennedy (d. 1969)
• 1943 – Mick Jagger, English musician (Rolling Stones)
• 1944 – Micki King, diver
• 1945 – Helen Mirren, actress
• 1949 – Roger Taylor, musician (Queen)
• 1956 – Dorothy Hamill, American figure skater
• 1957 – Nana Visitor, actress
• 1957  – Elizabeth Wollner-Grandville
• 1959 – Kevin Spacey, Academy Award-winning actor
• 1964 – Sandra Bullock, actress
• 1965 – Jeremy Piven, actor
• 1973 – Kate Beckinsale, actress
• 1976 – Chad Pennington, American football player
• 1993 – Taylor Momsen, actress

Deaths

• 456 – Offa, king of Mercia
• 811 – Nicephorus I, Byzantine emperor (slain in battle)
• 1380 – Emperor Komyo of Japan, second of the Northern Ashikaga Pretenders (b. 1322)
• 1680 – John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, writer (b. 1647)
• 1863 – Sam Houston, American politician, former President of the Republic of Texas (b. 1793)
• 1919 – Sir Edward Poynter, British painter (b. 1836)
• 1925 – Gottlob Frege, German mathematician and logician (b. 1848)
• 1925  – William Jennings Bryan, American politician (b. 1860)
• 1932 – Frederick Duesenberg, automotive inventor
• 1935 – Winsor McCay, early cartoonist (b. 1871)
• 1952 – Eva Perón, former wife of President of Argentina (b. 1919)
• 1969 – Frank Loesser, composer (b. 1910)
• 1971 – Diane Arbus , photographer (b. 1923)
• 1984 – Ed Gein, American serial killer (b. 1906)
• 1986 – Averell Harriman, American diplomat (b. 1891)
• 1988 – Fazlur Rahman, Pakistani scholar (b. 1919)
• 2001 – Peter von Zahn, German journalist (b. 1913)

Holidays and Observances

• Algeria – Fanon Day
• Cuba – Anniversary of the Moncada Barracks Attack Day (1953), Revolution Day
• Liberia – Independence Day
• Maldives – Independence Day
• India – Vijay Divas (end of Kargil War)

External links

• BBC: On This Day

July 25 – July 27 – June 26 – August 26 — listing of all days