June 26

Events

Pre-1600

• 4 - Augustus adopts Tiberius.
• 221 - Roman emperor Elagabalus adopts his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir and grants him the title of Caesar.
• 363 - Roman emperor Julian is killed during the retreat from the Sasanian Empire.
• 684 - Pope Benedict II is the last pope to require confirmation by the Byzantine emperor before taking office.
• 699 - En no Ozuno, a Japanese mystic and apothecary who will later be regarded as the founder of a folk religion Shugendō, is banished to Izu Ōshima.
• 1243 - Mongols defeat the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Köse Dağ.
• 1295 - Przemysł II crowned king of Poland, following Ducal period. The white eagle is added to the Polish coat of arms.
• 1407 - Ulrich von Jungingen becomes Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights.
• 1409 - Western Schism: The Roman Catholic Church is led into a double schism as Petros Philargos is crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XIII in Avignon.
• 1460 - War of the Roses: Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and Edward, Earl of March, land in England with a rebel army and march on London.
• 1483 - Richard III becomes King of England.
• 1522 - Ottomans begin the second Siege of Rhodes.
• 1541 - Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima by the son of his former companion and later antagonist, Diego de Almagro the younger. Almagro is later caught and executed.
• 1579 - Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory begins.

  1601–1900

• 1718 - Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously dies after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him.
• 1723 - After a siege and bombardment by cannon, Baku surrenders to the Russians.
• 1740 - A combined force of Spanish, free blacks and allied Indians defeat a British garrison at the Siege of Fort Mose near St. Augustine during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
• 1794 - French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Fleurus marks the first successful military use of aircraft and turns the tide of the War of the First Coalition.
• 1830 - William IV becomes king of Britain and Hanover following the death without surviving legitimate issue of his older brother George IV.
• 1843 - Treaty of Nanking comes into effect, Hong Kong Island is ceded to the British "in perpetuity".
• 1848 - End of the June Days Uprising in Paris.
• 1857 - The first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London.
• 1886 - Henri Moissan isolated elemental Fluorine for the first time.
• 1889 - Bangui is founded by Albert Dolisie and Alfred Uzac in what was then the upper reaches of the French Congo.

  1901–present

• 1906 - The first Grand Prix motor race is held at Le Mans.
• 1909 - The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity.
• 1917 - World War I: The American Expeditionary Forces begin to arrive in France. They will first enter combat in the Battle of Hamel on July 4.
• 1918 - World War I: Allied forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeat Imperial German forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince in the Battle of Belleau Wood.
• 1924 - The American occupation of the Dominican Republic ends after eight years.
• 1927 - The Cyclone roller coaster opens on Coney Island.
• 1934 - United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions.
• 1936 - Initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.
• 1940 - World War II: Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina.
• 1941 - World War II: Soviet planes bomb Kassa, Hungary, giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day.
• 1942 - The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat.
• 1944 - World War II: San Marino, a neutral state, is mistakenly bombed by the RAF based on faulty information, leading to 35 civilian deaths.
• 1944 - World War II: The Battle of Osuchy in Osuchy, Poland, one of the largest battles between Nazi Germany and Polish resistance forces, ends with the defeat of the latter.
• 1945 - The United Nations Charter is signed by 50 Allied nations in San Francisco, California.
• 1948 - Cold War: The first supply flights are made in response to the Berlin Blockade.
• 1948 - William Shockley files the original patent for the grown-junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor.
• 1948 - Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" is published in The New Yorker magazine.
• 1952 - The Pan-Malayan Labour Party is founded in Malaya, as a union of statewide labour parties.
• 1953 - Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, is arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo.
• 1955 - The South African Congress Alliance adopts the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown.
• 1959 - Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson becomes world champion of heavy weight boxing, by defeating American Floyd Patterson on technical knockout after two minutes and three seconds in the third round at Yankee Stadium.
• 1960 - The former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gains its independence as Somaliland.
• 1960 - Madagascar gains its independence from France.
• 1963 - Cold War: U.S. President John F. Kennedy gives his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall.
• 1967 - Karol Wojtyła is made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.
• 1974 - The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.
• 1975 - Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.
• 1977 - Elvis Presley holds what will prove to be his final concert at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• 1978 - Air Canada Flight 189, flying to Toronto, overruns the runway and crashes into the Etobicoke Creek ravine. Two of the 107 passengers on board perish.
• 1981 - Dan-Air Flight 240, flying to East Midlands Airport, crashes in Nailstone, Leicestershire. All three crew members perish.
• 1988 - The first crash of an Airbus A320 occurs when Air France Flight 296Q crashes at Mulhouse–Habsheim Airfield in Habsheim, France, during an air show, killing three of the 136 people on board.
• 1991 - Yugoslav Wars: The Yugoslav People's Army begins the Ten-Day War in Slovenia.
• 1995 - Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani deposes his father Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup d'état.
• 1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
• 1997 - J. K. Rowling publishes the first of her Harry Potter novel series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in United Kingdom.
• 2000 - The Human Genome Project announces the completion of a "rough draft" sequence.
• 2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that sex-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.
• 2006 - Mari Alkatiri, the first Prime Minister of East Timor, resigns after weeks of political unrest.
• 2007 - Pope Benedict XVI reinstates the traditional laws of papal election in which a successful candidate must receive two-thirds of the votes.
• 2008 - A suicide bomber dressed as an Iraqi policeman detonates an explosive vest, killing 25 people.
• 2012 - The Waldo Canyon fire descends into the Mountain Shadows neighborhood in Colorado Springs burning 347 homes in a matter of hours and killing two people.
• 2013 - Riots in China's Xinjiang region kill at least 36 people and injure 21 others.
• 2013 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5–4, that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
• 2015 - Five different terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, Somalia, Kuwait, and Syria occurred on what was dubbed Bloody Friday by international media. Upwards of 750 people were either killed or injured in these uncoordinated attacks.
• 2015 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5–4, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
• 2024 - Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, returns to Australia after pleading guilty to one charge of espionage in a Saipan court and subsequently being released by the United States Department of Justice.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 12 BC - Agrippa Postumus, Roman son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder
• 1399 - John, Count of Angoulême
• 1467 - Ferdinand II of Naples
• 1575 - Anne Catherine of Brandenburg
• 1581 - San Pedro Claver, Spanish Jesuit saint
• 1600 - Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Spanish-born bishop and viceroy of New Spain

  1601–1900

• 1681 - Hedvig Sophia of Sweden
• 1689 - Edward Holyoke, American pastor and academic
• 1694 - Georg Brandt, Swedish chemist and mineralogist
• 1699 - Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, French businesswoman
• 1702 - Philip Doddridge, English hymn-writer and educator
• 1703 - Thomas Clap, American minister and academic
• 1726 - Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia
• 1730 - Charles Messier, French astronomer and academic
• 1764 - Jan Paweł Łuszczewski, Polish politician
• 1786 - Sunthorn Phu, Thai poet
• 1796 - Jan Paweł Lelewel, Polish painter and engineer
• 1798 - Wolfgang Menzel, German poet and critic
• 1817 - Branwell Brontë, English painter and poet
• 1819 - Abner Doubleday, American general
• 1821 - Bartolomé Mitre, Argentinian soldier, journalist, and politician, 6th President of Argentina
• 1824 - William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Irish-Scottish physicist and engineer
• 1835 - Thomas W. Knox, American journalist and author
• 1839 - Sam Watkins, American soldier and author
• 1852 - Daoud Corm, Lebanese painter
• 1854 - Robert Laird Borden, Canadian lawyer and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Canada
• 1865 - Bernard Berenson, Lithuanian-American historian and author
• 1866 - George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, English archaeologist and banker, backer in the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb
• 1869 - Martin Andersen Nexø, Danish journalist and author
• 1878 - Leopold Löwenheim, German mathematician and logician
• 1880 - Mitchell Lewis, American actor
• 1881 - Ya'akov Cohen, Israeli linguist, poet, and playwright
• 1892 - Pearl S. Buck, American novelist, essayist, short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1893 - Dorothy Fuldheim, American journalist and news anchor
• 1895 - George Hainsworth, Canadian ice hockey player and politician
• 1898 - Willy Messerschmitt, German engineer and businessman
• 1898 - Chesty Puller, US general
• 1899 - Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia