26 July

Events657 - Battle of Siffin.811 - Battle of Pliska; Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I is slain, his heir Stauracius is seriously wounded.920 - Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims at Pamplona.1139 - Afonso, then a count, is proclaimed first king of Portugal and declares independence from Leon.1309 - Henry VII is recognized King of the Romans by Pope Clement V.1469 - Wars of the Roses: Battle of Edgecote Moor - Pitting the forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those of King Edward IV.1581 - Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Oath of Abjuration). The declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II.1775 - The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department was established by the Second Continental Congress. 1788 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.1803 - The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London.1822 - José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet with Simón Bolívar.1847 - Liberia declares independence. 1861 - American Civil War: George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run. 1863 - American Civil War: Morgan's Raid ends - At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces. 1878 - In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box will be found later with a taunting poem inside.1882 - Premiere of Richard Wagner's Parsifal at Bayreuth.1887 - L. L. Zamenhof publishes "Dr. Esperanto's International Language".1891 - France annexes Tahiti.1908 - United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).1914 - Serbia and Bulgaria interrupt diplomatic relationship.1934 - Assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss.1936 - The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.1937 - End of the Battle of Brunete in the Spanish Civil War.1941 - World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.1944 - World War II: Soviet army enters Lviv, major city of western Ukraine, liberating it from the Nazis. Only 300 Jewish survivors left, out of 160,000 Jews in Lviv prior to Nazi occupation.1944 - The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain.1945 - The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing  Winston Churchill from power.1945   - The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.1947 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council. 1948 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981  desegregating the military of the United States. 1948   - André Marie becomes Prime Minister of France.1952 - King Farouk of Egypt abdicates in favour of his son Fuad.1953 - Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.1953 - Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle orders an anti-polygamy law enforcement crackdown on residents of Short Creek, Arizona, which becomes known as the Short Creek Raid.1956 - Following the World Bank's decline to fund building the Aswan High Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.1957 - Carlos Castillo Armas, dictator of Guatemala, is assassinated1958 - Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched. 1963 - Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.1963   - Earthquake in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia (formerly part of Yugoslavia) - 1100 dead1963   - The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development votes to admit Japan.1965 - Full independence was granted to the Maldives. 1966 - Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent.1968 - Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war. 1971 - Apollo Program: Apollo 15 Mission - Launch of Apollo 15. 1974 - Greek Prime Minister Constantin Caramanlis forms the country's first civil government after seven years of military rule.1975 - Formation of a military triumvirate in Portugal.1977 - The National Assembly of Quebec imposes the use of French as the official language of the provincial government. 1989 - A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.1991 - Paul Reubens, ("Peewee Herman"), is arrested in a Sarasota, Florida theater for exposing himself.1993 - Italian Democrazia Cristian changes its name to People's Party.1994 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders the removal of Russian troops from Estonia.2005 - Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission - Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003. 2005   - Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of rain within 24 hours, bringing the city to a halt for over 2 days.
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