May 26

May 26 is the 146th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (147th in leap years). There are 219 days remaining before the end of the year.

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Contents

1 Events

2 Births

3 Deaths

4 Holidays and observances

5 External links

Events

1328 - William of Ockham, Franciscan Minister-General Michael of Cesena, and two other Franciscan leaders secretly leave Avignon, fearing a sentence of death from Pope John XXII. In December 1327, Ockham was brought into a theological dispute with the pope on the issue of Franciscans taking a vow of poverty. When Michael Cesena asked him to comment on the dispute (Cesena believed in the vow of poverty but the pope disagreed), Ockham wrote the reply accusing John of heresy. Upon learning on their imminent condemnation, Ockham fled the city under the protection of Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV, who was also in conflict with the pope over papal authority over the Holy Roman Empire and had been excommunicated in 1324.
1538 - Geneva expels John Calvin and his followers from the city. Calvin lives in exile in Strasbourg for the next three years.
1637 - Pequot War: A combined Puritan and Mohegan force under English Captain John Mason attacks a Pequot village in Connecticut, massacring approximately 500 Native Americans.
1670 - In Dover, King Charles II of England and King Louis XIV of France sign the Secret Treaty of Dover. The treaty requires France to assist England in its aim to rejoin the Roman Catholic Church. It also compelled England to withdraw from the Triple Alliance with the Netherlands and Sweden against France, and also to assist France in its war of conquest against the United Provinces. This led to the Third Anglo-Dutch War from 1672 to 1674.
1736 - Battle of Ackia: British and Chickasaw soldiers repel a French and Choctaw attack on the Chickasaw village of Ackia, near present-day Tupelo, Mississippi. The French, under Louisiana governor Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, had sought to link Louisiana with Acadia and the other northern colonies of New France.
1805 - Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon I) assumes the title of King of Italy and is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in the Duomo di Milano gothic cathedral in Milan.
1828 - Mysterious feral child Kaspar Hauser is discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg.
1830 - The Indian Removal Act is passed by the U.S. Congress; it is signed into law by President Andrew Jackson two days later.
1864 - Montana is organized as a United States territory.
1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi division, is the last general of the Confederate Army to surrender, at Galveston, Texas.
1868 - The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ends, with Johnson being found not guilty by one vote.
1879 - Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak establishing an Afghan state.
1889 - Opening of the first Eiffel Tower elevator to the public
1896 - Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia.
1896 - Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
1897 - Bram Stoker's novel Dracula goes on sale in London.
1906 - Vauxhall Bridge is opened in London.
1908 - At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.
1918 - The Democratic Republic of Georgia is established.
1938 - The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its first session.
1940 - World War II: Battle of Dunkirk – In France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk.
1948 - The U.S. Congress passes Public Law 557 which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as an auxiliary of the United States Air Force.
1963 - The Organisation of African Unity is formed.
1966 - British Guiana gains independence, becoming Guyana.
1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first manned moon landing.
1969 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin their second Bed-In for Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.
1970 - The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.
1972 - Willandra National Park is established in Australia.
1972 - The United States and the Soviet Union sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
1977 - George Willig climbs the South Tower of New York City's World Trade Center.
1978 - In Atlantic City, New Jersey, Resorts International, the first legal casino in the eastern United States, opens.
1986 - The European Community adopts the European flag.
1991 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia becomes the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era.
1991 - Lauda Air Flight 004 explodes over rural Thailand, killing 223.
2002 - The Mars Odyssey finds signs of huge water ice deposits on the planet Mars.
2002 - Álvaro Uribe becomes President of Colombia.
2003 - Only three days after a previous record, Sherpa Lakpa Gelu climbs Mount Everest in 10 hours 56 minutes. The tourism ministry of Nepal confirms this record in July that year.
2004 - The New York Times publishes an admission of journalistic failings, claiming that its flawed reporting and lack of skeptism towards sources during the buildup to the 2003 war in Iraq helped promote the belief that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.