Today in History: July 26

Today in History: July 26

657
Battle of Siffin during the first Muslim civil war between Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muawiyah I beside Euphrates River



1267
Inquisition forms in Rome under Pope Clement IV

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

1499
Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda discovers Curacao Island

1529
Francisco Pizarro receives a royal warrant to "discover and conquer" Peru.

1533
Francisco Pizarro orders the death of the last Sapa Inca Emperor, Atahualpa

1609
English mathematician Thomas Harriot is the first person to draw a map of the Moon by looking through a telescope

1755
Giacomo Casanova is arrested in Venice for affront to religion and common decency and imprisoned in the Doge's Palace

1775
The Continental Congress establishes a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general.

1788
The Convention of the State of New York, meeting in Poughkeepsie, voted to ratify the Constitution of the United States. With its ratification of the Constitution, New York entered the new union as the eleventh of the original thirteen colonies to join together as the United States of America.

1803
The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London

1835
1st successful sugar cane plantation started in Hawaii. In 1835, an American business partnership called Ladd & Company leased land from Hawaii's King Kamehameha III and used it to start a sugar plantation. It was the first time anyone in Hawaii had attempted to produce sugar on a large scale, but it would not be the last. In time, sugar would be at the center of Hawaii's economy.


1847
The country of Liberia is founded. This west African state was founded primarily by freed slaves from the United States. The Liberian constitution was based on the US's constitution and the capital, Monrovia, is named after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States.

1878
In California, 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 found later with a taunting poem inside.

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)

1945
Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva depart Kirtland Army Air Field to transport the plutonium core for the Fat Man bomb (bombing of Nagasaki) to the island of Tinian where the bomb is assembled.

1945
Potsdam Declaration is signed. Also known as the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, the declaration signed by the US, UK and China, detailed the terms of surrender for Japan after World War II.

1947
President Harry S Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

1948
In an Executive Order, President Harry Truman calls for the end of discrimination and segregation in the U.S. armed forces.

1962 
Maria Oeljanov, 1st airship with nuclear missiles, arrives in Cuba

1963
Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite is launched. Part of NASA's Syncom program, it was responsible for transmitting the first TV signal from a geosynchronous satellite, a manmade satellite whose orbital period around the Earth matches the Earth's rotation.

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
The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the British and French-owned Suez Canal hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of of the Aswan dam on the Nile.

1965 
Independence of Maldives. The Indian Ocean Island nation gained independence after 78 years of British rule.

1971 
Apollo 15 launched (Scott and Irwin) to 4th manned landing on Moon

1981
US Open Women's Golf, La Grange CC: Pat Bradley shoots final round 66 (−6) to finish 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Beth Daniel.

Births On This Day – 26 July

1943 Mick Jagger
English singer-songwriter, producer, actor

1928 Stanley Kubrick
American director

1894 Aldous Huxley
English author

1875 Carl Jung
Swiss psychiatrist

1856 George Bernard Shaw
Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate

Deaths On This Day – 26 July

1995 George W. Romney
American businessman, politician

1952 Eva Perón
Argentinian actress, 25th First Lady of Argentina

1925 William Jennings Bryan
American politician, 41st United States Secretary of State

1863 Sam Houston
American soldier, politician, 1st President of the Republic of Texas

796 Offa of Mercia