July 26
is the 207th day (208th in
leap years) of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar, with 158 days remaining.
*
657 -
Battle of Siffin.
*
811 -
Battle of Pliska;
Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I is slain, his heir
Stauracius is seriously wounded.
*
1139 -
Afonso, then a count, is proclaimed first king of
Portugal and declares independence from
Castile.
*
1469 -
Wars of the Roses:
Battle of Edgecote Moor - Pitting the forces of
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those of
King Edward IV.
*
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.
*
1788 -
New York ratifies the
United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the
United States.
*
1803 - The
Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public
railway, opens in south
London.
*
1822 -
José de San Martín arrives in
Guayaquil,
Ecuador, to
meet with
Simón Bolívar.
*
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 -
The Labour Party wins the
United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing
Winston Churchill from power.
*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.
* 1953 -
Arizona Governor
John Howard Pyle orders a law enforcement crackdown on
Short Creek, Arizona, home to a
polygamous sect of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
*
1956 - Following the
World Bank's decline to fund building the
Aswan High Dam,
Egyptian leader
Gamal Nasser nationalizes the
Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.
*
1957 -
Carlos Castillo Armas, dictator of
Guatemala, is assassinated
*
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 - 1100 dead
* 1963 - The
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development votes to admit
Japan.
*
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:
Apollo 15 Mission - Launch of Apollo 15.
*
1989 - A federal
grand jury indicts
Cornell University student
Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the
Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the
1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
*
1990 - U.S. President
George H.W. Bush signs the
Americans with Disabilities Act, designed to protect disabled Americans from discrimination.
*
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.
*
2005 -
Space Shuttle program:
STS-114 Mission - Launch of
Space Shuttle Discovery,
NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the
Columbia Disaster in 2003.
* 2005 -
Mumbai (f.k.a.
Bombay) - the financial capital and most populated city of
India - receives 99.5cm of rain within 24 hours, bringing the city to a halt for over 2 days. (See:
2005 Maharashtra floods.)
*
1030 -
Stanislaus of Szczepanów, St. Stanislaw (d.
1079)
*
1678 -
Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d.
1711)
*
1782 -
John Field, Irish composer (d.
1837)
*
1802 -
Mariano Arista,
President of Mexico (d.
1855)
*
1829 -
Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert, Belgian statesman,
Nobel Prize Laureate (d.
1912)
*
1855 -
Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d.
1936)
*
1856 -
George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer,
Nobel Prize Laureate (d.
1950)
*
1865 -
Philipp Scheidemann, 1st
Chancellors of the Weimar Republic (d.
1939)
*
1874 -
Serge Koussevitsky, Russian conductor (d.
1951)
*
1875 -
Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (d.
1961)
* 1875 -
Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (d.
1939)
*
1880 -
Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Ukrainian statesman (d.
1951)
*
1886 -
Lars Hanson, Swedish actor (d.
1965)
*
1892 -
Sad Sam Jones, baseball player (d.
1966)
*
1894 -
Aldous Huxley, English-born author (d.
1963)
*
1897 -
Paul Gallico, American author (d.
1976)
*
1903 -
Estes Kefauver,
U.S. Senator from Tennessee (d.
1963)
*
1908 -
Salvador Allende,
President of Chile (d.
1973)
*
1909 -
Vivian Vance, American actress (d.
1979)
*
1914 -
Ellis Kinder, baseball player (d.
1968)
*
1920 -
Bob Waterfield, American football player (d.
1983)
*
1921 -
Jean Shepherd, American writer (d.
1999)
*
1922 -
Blake Edwards, American film director
* 1922 -
Jason Robards, American actor (d.
2000)
*
1923 -
Hoyt Wilhelm, baseball player (d.
2002)
*
1926 -
James Best, American actor
*
1928 -
Francesco Cossiga, 8th
President of the Italian Republic* 1928 -
Stanley Kubrick, American film director (d.
1999)
*
1929 -
Alexis Weissenberg, French pianist--born in Bulgaria
*
1931 -
Takashi Ono, Japanese gymnast
*
1938 -
Bobby Hebb, American musician
*
1939 -
John Howard, 25th
Prime Minister of Australia* 1939 -
Bob Lilly, American football player
*
1940 -
Mary Jo Kopechne, American aide to
Robert F. Kennedy (d.
1969)
*
1941 -
Brenton Wood, American singer-songwriter
*
1942 -
Vladimír Mečiar, Slovak prime minister
*
1943 -
Mick Jagger, English musician (
The Rolling Stones)
*
1945 -
Helen Mirren, English actress
*
1949 -
Roger Taylor, English musician (
Queen)
* 1949 -
Thaksin Shinawatra-Prime Minister of Thailand
*
1950 -
Nelinho, Brazilian football player
*
1956 -
Dorothy Hamill, American figure skater
*
1957 -
Nana Visitor, American actress
*
1959 -
Rick Bragg, American writer
* 1959 -
Kevin Spacey, American actor
*
1961 -
Gary Cherone, American musician (
Extreme)
* 1961 -
Keiko Matsui, Japanese musician and composer
*
1964 -
Sandra Bullock, American actress
*
1965 -
Jeremy Piven, American actor
*
1969 -
Jonty Rhodes, South African cricketer
*
1973 -
Kate Beckinsale, British actress
* 1973 -
Lenka Šarounová, Czech astronomer
*
1974 -
Daniel Negreanu, Canadian poker player
*
1977 -
Martin Laursen, Danish footballer
*1977 -
Rebecca St. James, Australian-born singer
*
1980 -
Dave Baksh, Canadian guitarist (
Sum41)
*
1983 -
Delonte West, American NBA player
* 1983 -
Roderick Strong, Wrestler
*
1985 -
Gael Clichy, French footballer
*
1993 -
Taylor Momsen, American
child actress*
796 -
Offa, King of Mercia
*
811 -
Nicephorus I,
Byzantine Emperor (killed in battle)
*
1380 -
Emperor Komyo of Japan (b.
1322)
*
1471 -
Pope Paul II (b.
1417)
*
1592 -
Armand de Gontaut, baron de Biron, French soldier (b.
1524)
*
1611 -
Horio Yoshiharu, Japanese warlord (b.
1542)
*
1680 -
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, English writer (b.
1647)
*
1712 -
Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, English statesman (b.
1631)
*
1723 -
Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, English statesman (b.
1660)
*
1863 -
Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas (b.
1793)
*
1867 - King
Otto of Greece (b.
1815)
*
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 S. Duesenberg automotive pioneer (b.
1876)
*
1935 -
Winsor McCay, American cartoonist (b.
1871)
*
1942 -
Roberto Arlt, Argentinian writer (b.
1900)
*
1952 -
Eva Perón, wife of Argentine President
Juan Perón (b.
1919)
*
1953 -
Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b.
1883)
*
1969 -
Frank Loesser, American composer (b.
1910)
*
1971 -
Diane Arbus, American photographer (suicide) (b.
1923)
*
1984 -
Ed Gein, American serial killer (b.
1906)
*
1986 -
Averell Harriman, American diplomat (b.
1891)
*
1988 -
Fazlur Rahman, Pakistani scholar (b.
1919)
*
1992 -
Mary Wells, American singer (b.
1943)
*
2001 -
Peter von Zahn, German journalist (b.
1913)
*
U.S. - Aunt and Uncle's Day
*
Cuba - Anniversary of the
Moncada Barracks Attack (1953); Day of the National Rebellion
*
Liberia - Independence Day
*
Maldives - Independence Day
*
India - Vijay Divas (end of
Kargil War)
*
Roman Catholicism - the feasts of at least 2 saints:
**St.
Anne (mother of
St. Mary)
**St.
Germain*
BBC: On This DayJuly 25 -
July 27 -
June 26 -
August 26 --
listing of all days
