Today In History: July 26
1758 – French and Indian War: the Siege of Louisbourg ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
1775 – The office that would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress.
1788 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.
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.
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).
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 – 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 US Navy cruiser USS Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with parts of the warhead for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
1947 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
the United States National Security Council.
1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.
1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
1963 – Syncom 2, the world’s first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.
1990 – The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into law by President George H. W. Bush.
2005 – Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission – Launch of Discovery, NASA’s first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003.
Born on July 26:
1739 – George Clinton, 4th Vice President of the USA (d. 1812)
1856 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Laureate (d. 1950)
1929 – Joe Jackson, American manager, boxer and talent scout, the patriarch of the Jackson family
1943 – Mick Jagger, English singer (The Rolling Stones)
1956 – Dorothy Hamill, American figure skater
1959 – Kevin Spacey, American actor
1964 – Sandra Bullock, American actress
Today in Alaskan history:
1969 Alaska Highway #1 was designated the Bluestar Memorial Highway by Governor Keith Miller.
