This day in history
Every day is full of amazing anniversaries, ancient and modern! As well as today, you can also look at any other day of the year - click the arrows to select the month, then click a number to select the day.
26 July
Events
- 811: The Byzantine emperor, Nicephorus I, is killed when his army is ambushed in a mountain pass by the Bulgars. The Bulgar khan, Krum, has Nicephorus's skull lined with silver for use as a drinking cup.
- 1533: The Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro executes his prisoner of eight months, Atahualpa, the Inca emperor, at Cajamarca (in modern Ecuador), despite having accepted a large ransom for his release. He then arranges to have the emperor's treacherous brother Tupac Hualpa crowned emperor, in the mistaken hope of retaining the support of Atahualpa's followers.
- 1886: Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, forms a Conservative government following their electoral victory.
- 1931: Colonel Carlos Ibez del Campo resigns as president of Chile owing to popular opposition to his repressive regime and the failure of his economic policies in the face of the worldwide depression, and flees to exile in Argentina.
- 1945: Labour wins a landslide victory in the British general election, with 393 seats against the Conservatives' 199. Clement Attlee becomes prime minister, Ernest Bevin foreign secretary, and Hugh Dalton chancellor of the Exchequer.
- 1956: The Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announces the nationalization of the Suez Canal (owned partly by France and Britain) after the USA and Britain announce they will not help fund the Aswan Dam project. On 31 July Britain, France, and the USA retaliate with financial measures.
- 1965: The British General Post Office announce that telephone numbers are to lose their letters and will consist of numerals only, to facilitate direct-dial international calls.
- 2002: The comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember is released in the USA and UK, directed by Jay Roach, and starring Mike Myers, Beyonc Knowles, and Michael Caine.
Births and Deaths
- George Bernard Shaw
1856: George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist propagandist, born in Dublin, Ireland (1950). - Carl Jung
1875: Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist who founds analytic psychology, born in Kesswil, Switzerland (1961). - William Jennings Bryan
1925: William Jennings Bryan, US lawyer, three-time Democratic presidential candidate, and prosecuting attorney in the Scopes trial (against Tennessee schoolteacher John T Scopes for teaching Darwinism), dies in Dayton, Tennessee (65). - Eva Pern
1952: Eva Pern, unofficial Argentine political leader and wife of Juan Pern, dies in Buenos Aires, Argentina (33).
Data provided by Helicon Publishing
