26 January History
- 1699 - The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the war between Austria and the Turks.
- 1720 - Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country's empire.
- 1788 - A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia's national day.
- 1861 - Louisiana secedes from the Union.
- 1863 - President Lincoln names General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
- 1875 - Pinkerton agents, hunting Jesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.
- 1885 - General "Chinese" Gordon is killed on the palace steps in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists in Africa.
- 1924 - Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.
- 1934 - Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.
- 1942 - American Expeditionary Force lands in Northern Ireland.
- 1943 - The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma.
- 1964 - Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.
- 1969 - California is declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides.
- 2005 - Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in an U.S. presidential cabinet.
26 January Birthdays
- 1715 - Claude Helvétius, French philosopher.
- 1826 - Julia Dent Grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant.
- 1880 - Douglas MacArthur, U.S. general in World War I, World War II and Korea.
- 1893 - Bessie Coleman, pioneer aviator.
- 1944 - Angela Davis, American activist.