Wikipedia: August 26

August 26
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

August 26 is the 238th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (239th in leap years). There are 127 days remaining.

Events

55 BC - Julius Caesar invades Britain
1071 - The Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert
1346 - Battle of Crécy
1429 - Joan of Arc enters Paris
1498 - Michelangelo commissioned to carve the Pieta
1789 - Declaration of Human Rights approved by Constituent Assembly at Versailles
1839 - Amistad captured off Long Island
1847 - Liberia proclaimed independent
1858 - First news dispatch by telegraph
1862 - Second Battle of Bull Run begins in the American Civil War
1883 - Eruption of Mount Krakatoa
1914 - Germans defeat Russians in Battle of Tannenberg
1920 - 19th amendment to U.S. Constitution gives women the right to vote
1944 - Charles de Gaulle enters Paris
1957 - Russia tests an ICBM
1968 - Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago
1972 - Games of the XX Olympiad open in Munich, Germany
1976 - Raymond Barre becomes Prime Minister of France
1978 - Pope John Paul I elevated to Papacy
1978 - Sigmund Jähn becomes first German cosmonaut on board of the Soyuz 33 spacecraft
1986 - Toxic gas kills 1700 in Cameroon
1987 - President Ronald Reagan proclaims September 11 1987 as 9-1-1 Emergency Number Day
2003 - Columbia Accident Investigation Board releases it's final reports on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on August 27, 2003

Births

1676 - Robert Walpole, British prime minister in 1721-1742 († 1745)
1740 - Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, inventor, worked on first hot air balloon († 1810)
1743 - Antoine Lavoisier, chemist († 1794)
1873 - Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube († 1961)
1880 - Guillaume Apollinaire, poet, art critic († 1918)
1898 - Peggy Guggenheim, art collector († 1979)
1900 - Hellmuth Walter, engineer and inventor († 1980)
1901 - General Maxwell Taylor, soldier († 1987)
1904 - Christopher Isherwood, writer († 1986)
1906 - Albert Sabin, polio researcher († 1993)
1909 - Jim Davis, actor († 1981)
1921 - Benjamin Bradlee, journalist
1922 - Irving R. Levine, journalist
1935 - Geraldine Ferraro, U.S. Vice Presidential candidate in 1984
1941 - Barbet Schroeder, director
1944 - Richard Alexander Walter Windsor, Duke of Gloucester
1946 - Valerie Simpson, singer
1952 - Michael Jeter, actor († 2003)
1960 - Branford Marsalis, saxophonist, bandleader
1980 - Macaulay Culkin, actor

Deaths

1278 - Premysl Ottokar II
1850 - Louis-Philippe of France
1930 - Lon Chaney, actor
1945 - Franz Werfel, writer
1974 - Charles Lindbergh, aviator
1975 - Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia
1977 - H.A. Rey, author
1978 - Charles Boyer, actor
1979 - Mika Waltari, author
1980 - Tex Avery, cartoonist
1981 - Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the ACLU
1984 - Truman Capote, author
1986 - Ted Knight, actor
1989 - Irving Stone, author

Holidays and observances

See Also:

August 25 - August 27 - July 26 - September 26 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December\n