26 February History
- 364 - On the death of Jovian, a conference at Nicaea chooses Valentinan, an army officer who was born in the central European region of Pannania, to succeed him in Asia Minor.
- 1154 - William the Bad succeeds his father, Roger the II, in Sicily.
- 1790 - As a result of the Revolution, France is divided into 83 departments.
- 1815 - Napoleon and 1,200 of his men leave Elba to start the 100-day re-conquest of France.
- 1848 - Karl Marx and Frederick Engels publish The Communist Manifesto in London.
- 1871 - France and Prussia sign a preliminary peace treaty at Versailles.
- 1901 - Boxer Rebellion leaders Chi-Hsin and Hsu-Cheng-Yu are publicly executed in Peking.
- 1914 - Russian aviator Igor Sikorsky carries 17 passengers in a twin engine plane in St. Petersburg.
- 1916 - General Henri Philippe Petain takes command of the French forces at Verdun.
- 1917 - President Wilson publicly asks congress for the power to arm merchant ships.
- 1924 - U.S. steel industry finds claims an eight-hour day increases efficiency and employee relations.
- 1933 - Ground is broken for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
- 1936 - Japanese military troops march into Tokyo to conduct a coup and assassinate political leaders.
- 1941 - British take the Somali capital in East Africa.
- 1943 - U.S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators pound German docks and U-boat lairs at Wilhelmshaven.
- 1945 - Syria declares war on Germany and Japan.
- 1951 - The 22nd Amendment is added to the Constitution limiting the Presidency to two terms.
- 1964 - Lyndon B. Johnson signs a tax bill with $11.5 billion in cuts.
- 1965 - Norman Butler is arrested for the murder of Malcom X.
- 1968 - Thirty-two African nations agree to boycott the Olympics because of the presence of South Africa.
- 1970 - Five Marines are arrested on charges of murdering 11 South Vietnamese women and children.
- 1972 - Soviets recover Luna 20 with a cargo of moon rocks.
- 1973 - A publisher and 10 reporters are subpoenaed to testify on Watergate.
- 1990 - Daniel Ortega, communist president of Nicaragua, suffers a shocking election defeat at the hands of Violeta Chamorro.
- 1993 - A bomb rocks the World Trade Center in New York City. Five people are killed and hundreds suffer from smoke inhalation.
26 February Birthdays
- 1802 - Victor Hugo, French novelist and poet (Les Misérables).
- 1829 - Levi Strauss, creator of blue jeans.
- 1832 - John George Nicolay, private secretary to Abraham Lincoln
- 1846 - William Frederick Cody, aka "Buffalo Bill".
- 1877 - Rudolph Dirks, cartoonist, creator of the "Katzenjammer Kids."
- 1879 - Mabel Dodge Luhan, American biographer.
- 1893 - I (vor) A (rmstrong) Richards, writer, critic and teacher.
- 1928 - Antoine "Fats" Domino, American singer.