26 August History
- 1017 - Turks defeat the Byzantine army under Emperor Romanus IV at Manikert, Eastern Turkey.
- 1429 - Joan of Arc makes a triumphant entry into Paris.
- 1789 - The Constituent Assembly in Versailles, France, approves the final version of the Declaration of Human Rights.
- 1862 - Confederate General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson encircles the Union Army under General John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
- 1883 - The Indonesian island of Krakatoa erupts in the largest explosion recorded in history, heard 2,200 miles away in Madagascar. The resulting destruction sends volcanic ash up 50 miles into the atmosphere and kills almost 36,000 people–both on the island itself and from the resulting 131-foot tidal waves that obliterate 163 villages on the shores of nearby Java and Sumatra.
- 1920 - The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is officially ratified, giving women the right to vote.
- 1943 - The United States recognizes the French Committee of National Liberation.
- 1957 - Ford Motor Company reveals the Edsel, its latest luxury car.
26 August Birthdays
- 1743 - Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry who defined the role of oxygen and named it.
- 1874 - Lee De Forest, physicist, inventor, considered the father of radio.
- 1875 - John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, writer and governor general of Canada, famous for his book The Thirty-Nine Steps.
- 1898 - Peggy Guggenheim, art patron and collector.
- 1906 - Christopher Isherwood, English novelist and playwright, author of Goodbye to Berlin, the inspiration for the play I am a Camera and the musical and film Cabaret.