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February 26: Today in History – Historical Events
19th Century – February 26 This Day That Year – The 1800s
1. 26th Feb 1815: Napoleon Bonaparte on this day escaped from the island of Elba. He then began his second conquest of France.
2. 26th Feb 1848: The second French republic was proclaimed on this day.
3. 26th Feb 1863: The National Currency Act in the United States was on this day signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
4. 26th Feb 1870: On this day the first Pneumatic-powered subway line was opened to the public.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day February 26th – The 1900s
5. 26th Feb 1907: Congressmen in the US gave themselves a raise. The new salary was $ 7,500.
6. 26th Feb 1917: When the United States entered World War I, President Wilson publicly asked Congress for the power to arm merchant ships.
7. 26th Feb 1918: Over 600 people died when the stands of the Jockey Club in Hong Kong collapsed and burned.
8. 26th Feb 1919: The Acadia National Park was established on this day as Lafayette National Park in Maine.
9. 26th Feb 1919: The Grand Canyon in Arizona was on this day established as a national park with an act of the US Congress.
10. 26th Feb 1923: This day marks the merger of Italian Nationalist Blue Shirts with the fascist Black Shirts.
11. 26th Feb 1924: A trial against Hitler began on this day in Munich.
12. 26th Feb 1924: The US Steel Industry claimed that an eight-hour day increased efficiency and also improved employee relations.
13. 26th Feb 1926: Dark Street in the Bronx was on this day renamed as Lustre Street.
14. 26th Feb 1929: US President Coolidge on this day signed a bill to create Grand Tinton National Park.
15. 26th Feb 1930: Traffic lights were on this day installed in New York City.
16. 26th Feb 1933: The groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge was held on this day at Crissy Field.
17. 26th Feb 1935: Robert Watson Watt on this day demonstrated the Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR).
18. 26th Feb 1935: The Luftwaffe operation began on this day in Germany under Reich Marshal H. Goring.
19. 26th Feb 1936: In Japan, the Japanese troops marched into Tokyo to conduct a coup and assassinate political leaders.
20. 26th Feb 1938: Radar was mounted for the first time on this day on a passenger ship.
21. 26th Feb 1940: The U.S. Air Defense command was on this day established at Mitchell Field in Long Island, New York.
22. 26th Feb 1941: Today the Cowboy’s Amateur Association of America was organized in California.
23. 26th Feb 1942: German battle cruiser Gneisenau was on this day deactivated by a bomb.
24. 26th Feb 1942: The World War II Navy flyer Don Mason on this day sent a message “Sighted a sub sank the same”.
25. 26th Feb 1942: The Nazis were on this day informed of the uranium project “Wunderwaffen” by Wener Heisenberg.
26. 26th Feb 1943: German assault was on this day moved to Beja in North Tunisia.
27. 26th Feb 1943: On this day the U.S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators pounded the Reich docks and U-boat lairs in Wilhelmshaven.
28. 26th Feb 1944: The U.S. Navy today appointed Sue Dauser as captain of the nurse corps. She was the first female to be appointed by the US Navy.
29. 26th Feb 1945: Syria on this day declared war on Germany and Japan.
30. 26th Feb 1945: A nationwide midnight curfew went into effect on this day in the United States.
31. 26th Feb 1945: The 8th US Air Force heavily bombed Berlin on this day.
32. 26th Feb 1946: There was a race riot in Columbia today. 2 people were killed and 10 wounded in the riot.
33. 26th Feb 1947: Lewis W Douglas was on this day named as the US ambassador to Britain by President Truman.
34. 26th Feb 1949: A U.S. Air Force Plane on this day began its first non-stop around-the-world flight.
35. 26th Feb 1951: Czechoslovakia introduced bread rationing on this day.
36. 26th Feb 1951: The 22nd amendment to the constitution, limiting a president to a two-year term in office was on this day ratified by the US.
37. 26th Feb 1952: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain, announced that Britain had developed an atomic bomb.
38. 26th Feb 1952: A Netherlands-Indonesian unity conference took place on this day.
39. 26th Feb 1952: The US on this day signed a military aid pact with Ecuador.
40. 26th Feb 1953: The deputy director of the CIA Allen W Dulles was on this day promoted to the 5th director of the CIA.
41. 26th Feb 1954: A legislation to ban mailing “obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy” phonograph (Rock and Roll records) was introduced on this day by Michigan Representative Ruth Thompson.
42. 26th Feb 1955: G. F. Smith became the first aviator to bail out while flying at supersonic speed.
43. 26th Feb 1955: At the Winter Garden Theater in New York City, “Peter Pan” closed on this day after 149 performances.
44. 26th Feb 1957: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science on this day instituted the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
45. 26th Feb 1960: Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev on this day voiced his support for Indonesia.
46. 26th Feb 1962: Racial separation in public transport was disallowed on this day by the US Supreme Court.
47. 26th Feb 1962: John Glenn, after becoming the first American to orbit the earth told the joint meeting of the Congress on this day that “Exploration and pursuit of knowledge have always paid dividends in the long run”.
48. 26th Feb 1964: President Lyndon B Jonson on this day signed a tax bill with $11.5 billion in cuts.
49. 26th Feb 1965: An Indian-born entrepreneur Spoony Singh Sundher, on this day opened the Hollywood Wax Museum on Hollywood Blvd. He charged $1.5 admission fee.
50. 26th Feb 1965: West Germany on this day stopped military aid to Tanzania.
51. 26th Feb 1966: The Indian lawyer and freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, died after renouncing food, water, and medicine, in a fast until death.
52. 26th Feb 1967: The USSR on this day performed an underground nuclear test in Eastern Kazakhstan.
53. 26th Feb 1968: Because of the presence of South Africa, thirty-two African nations agreed to boycott the Olympics.
54. 26th Feb 1968: The Voice of Iraqi People (Communist), a clandestine radio made its final transmission today.
55. 26th Feb 1970: Five marines were on this day arrested on charges of murdering 11 Vietnamese women and children.
56. 26th Feb 1972: The Soviets on this day recovered Luna 20 with a cargo of moon rocks.
57. 26th Feb 1972: 125 people were killed and Buffalo Creek was swallowed by a coal sludge spill when over 132 million gallons of water and mud hit 17 little towns along Buffalo Creek.
58. 26th Feb 1973: In the Watergate trial, a publisher and ten reporters were subpoenaed to testify on this day.
59. 26th Feb 1975: The first televised kidney transplant was shown on the Today Show.
60. 26th Feb 1976: The US was on this day performing a nuclear test at its Nevada test site.
61. 26th Feb 1979: In the last solar eclipse of the century, the solar eclipse cast a shadow 175 miles wide from Oregon to North Dakota before moving to Canada.
62. 26th Feb 1980: In an armed robbery Campbell Liquor Store owner Frank Gummer was shot dead by Ricky Keel and Jeffry Taylor.
63. 26th Feb 1980: Egypt and Israel exchange ambassadors for the first time.
64. 26th Feb 1980: The New Hampshire primary was on this day won by republican Ronald Regan over Georg Bush.
65. 26th Feb 1981: Three British Anglican missionaries detained in Iraq since Aug 1980 were on this day released.
66. 26th Feb 1981: The French Trainset 16 on this day averaged 380 Kmph as part of operation TGV 100.
67. 26th Feb 1983: Short wave pirate radio, Radio USA began transmission today.
68. 26th Feb 1984: The last U.S. marines, who were part of the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon, left Beirut on this day.
69. 26th Feb 1986: The librarian of the US Congress Dania J. Boorstin on this day named Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Penn Warren as the first poet laureate. Warren was awarded the post of US Poet Laureate consultant to the Library of Congress.
70. 26th Feb 1986: After the long-term president Ferdinand Marcos went into exile, Corazon Aquino was on this day inaugurated as president of the Philippines.
71. 26th Feb 1987: The first Beetles compact disc was released on this day by British stores.
72. 26th Feb 1987: The USSR on this day conducted its first nuclear test after a nineteen-month moratorium period.
73. 26th Feb 1987: NASA on this day launched the Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite (GOES-H). The satellite carried experimental search and rescue equipment.
74. 26th Feb 1987: US President Ronald Regan was rebuked on this day by the Tower Commission for not controlling his national security staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.
75. 26th Feb 1989: President George Bush’s China visit was marred when Chinese authorities refused to allow dissident leader Fang Lizhi to attend a banquet hosted by Bush.
76. 26th Feb 1990: USSR on this day agreed to withdraw all the 73,500 troops from Czechoslovakia by July 1991.
77. 26th Feb 1991: After nearly 100 hours of ground war, allied forces took control of Kuwait.
78. 26th Feb 1991: President Saddam Hussein of Iraq on this day announced on Bagdad radio that Iraqi troops were being withdrawn from Kuwait.
79. 26th Feb 1992: The Supreme Court of the US on this day unanimously ruled that sexually harassed students may sue and collect monetary damages from their schools and school officials.
80. 26th Feb 1992: The Supreme Court of Ireland on this day cleared the way for a 14-year-old to leave the country for abortion.
81. 26th Feb 1993: A bomb exploded in a coffee shop in Cairo Egypt. Three people were killed and 18 others were injured in the explosion.
82. 26th Feb 1993: A van which was parked in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City exploded today killing six people and injuring over a thousand people.
83. 26th Feb 1995: The United States and China on this day signed a comprehensive agreement that virtually averted the trade war.
84. 26th Feb 1995: Barings PLC, Britain’s oldest investment banking firm collapsed after the securities dealer gambled and lost more than $1.4 billion on Tokyo stock prices.
85. 26th Feb 1996: In response to Cuba’s shooting down of two unarmed airplanes belonging to the Cuban-American exile group “Brothers to the Rescue”, President Clinton moved to step up economic sanctions on Cuba.
86. 26th Feb 1997: In the United States smokers were required to produce proof to the effect that they are over 18 years of age for buying cigarettes.
87. 26th Feb 1997: A day after the disclosure of documents putting President Clinton at the center of all of the fundraising efforts on this day he defended the white house fundraising tactics as “entirely appropriate”.
88. 26th Feb 1998: A health panel in Oregon ruled on this day that taxpayers must help to pay for doctor-assisted suicides.
89. 26th Feb 1999: President Clinton outlined the foreign policy goals for the final two years of his administration and urged American engagement in the pursuit of peace and freedom abroad.
90. 26th Feb 1999: The U.N. Security Council on this day voted to close its peacekeeping mission in Angola due to the renewed civil war.
91. 26th Feb 1999: International donors on the 2nd day of the conference in Japan, pledged to provide $470 million in aid to Cambodia, provided that the country reduces its army and promotes democracy.
21st Century – February 26 This Day In History – The 2000s
92. 26th Feb 2000: The Vice Consul of Cuban interests section in Washington, Jose Imperatori, was on this day expelled from the US after he refused to voluntarily leave under charges of spying.
93. 26th Feb 2001: Bosnian Croat political leader Dario Kordic and military commander Mario Cerkez were convicted on this day for war crimes by a U.N. tribunal. They had alleged to have ordered the systematic murder and persecution of Muslim civilians during the Bosnian war.
94. 26th Feb 2002: A bomb explosion occurred near the Interior Ministry in Rome, Italy. There were no casualties.
95. 26th Feb 2003: It was reported on this day in Algeria that more than 7000 people are believed to have gone missing at the hands of the security forces during the 1990s.
96. 26th Feb 2004: The US security restrictions against Cuba were on this day tightened by President Bush.
97. 26th Feb 2005: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, while addressing the Nation’s Governors delivered a scathing remark about US high schools, calling them obsolete and saying that the elected officials should be ashamed of the system which leaves millions of students unprepared for college and for technical jobs.
98. 26th Feb 2006: Sixty former Taliban which included five high-ranking figures, on this day surrendered as part of the government’s amnesty scheme. They vowed to lay down their arms and to work for the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
99. 26th Feb 2009: The International Criminal Tribunal on this day acquitted Serbian President Milan Milutinovic of war crimes during the Kosovo war.
100. 26th Feb 2009: On this day pentagon reversed the policy of not allowing media coverage of covering returning war dead. Media was now allowed coverage with family approval.
See Also:
- Famous People Born Today – February 26th
- Famous People Who Died On February 26
- February 26 Famous Birthdays
- February 26 Birthday Personality Traits
- February Birthday Astrology