26 July History
- 657 - Mu'awiyan defeats Caliph Ali in the Battle of Siffin in Mesopotamia.
- 1526 - Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon and colonists leave Santo Domingo for Florida.
- 1529 - Francisco Pizarro receives a royal warrant to "discover and conquer" Peru.
- 1758 - British forces capture France's Fortress of Louisbourg after a seven-week siege.
- 1759 - The French relinquish Fort Ticonderoga in New York to the British under General Jeffrey Amherst.
- 1775 - The Continental Congress establishes a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general.
- 1790 - An attempt at a counter-revolution in France is put down by the National Guard at Lyons.
- 1794 - The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus, France.
- 1830 - King Charles X of France issues five ordinances limiting the political and civil rights of citizens.
- 1847 - Liberia becomes the first African colony to become an independent state.
- 1848 - The French army suppresses the Paris uprising.
- 1886 - William Gladstone is replaced by Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister of England.
- 1918 - Britain's top war ace, Edward Mannock, is shot down by ground fire on the Western Front.
- 1920 - The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified.
- 1948 - In an Executive Order, President Harry Truman calls for the end of discrimination and segregation in the U.S. armed forces.
26 July Birthdays
- 1796 - George Catlin, American artist and author.
- 1856 - George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, Major Barbara).
- 1875 - Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist.
- 1893 - George Grosz, German satiric artist.
- 1895 - Gracie Allen, actress, wife and foil of George Burns.
- 1895 - Robert Graves, poet and novelist ( I Claudius).
- 1914 - Erskine Hawkins, trumpeter.
- 1928 - Stanley Kubrick, film director (Spartacus, 2001: A Space Odyssey).
- 1928 - Bernice Rubens, Welsh novelist and filmmaker.
- 1943 - Mick [Michael Phillip] Jagger, musician, member of the Rolling Stones.