26th of July

1309 - Henry VII is recognized as King of the Romans by Pope Clement V.

1469 - The Battle of Edgecote Moor, during the War of the Roses, pits the forces of Richard Neville the 16th Earl of Warwick, against those of Edward IV of England.

1758 - The Siege of Louisbourg, during the French and Indian War, ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1788 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.

1791 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, the youngest child of the famous composer is born.

1847 - Celebrating the independence of Liberia from the United States.

1861 - George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following the First Battle of Bull Run.

1863 - Morgan's Raid ends at Salineville, Ohio.  Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured.

1863 - Sam Houston, the President of the Republic of Texas, dies at the age of 70.

1925 - William Jennings Bryan, American politician standing three times as the Democratic Party candidate for President (1896, 1900, and 1908), dies at 65.

1928 - Famed American film director Stanley Kubrick is born.

1932 - Frederick Duesenberg, the famous German-born American automobile pioneer, designer, and manufacturer dies.

1941 - In response to Japanese occupation of French Indochina, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

1943 - Mick Jagger, the English singer of The Rolling Stones is born.

1944 - The Soviet Red Army enters Lviv, a major city in the Ukraine.  It is liberated fro the Nazis and only three hundred Jews survive out of 160,000 that were living their prior to the war.

1944 - The first V-2 German rocket makes contact in Great Britain.

1945 - The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide.  The election removes Winston Churchill from power.

1945 - The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.  The document outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan.  The ultimatum stated that, If Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction."  The Declaration was Mokusatsu, or ignored by the Japanese high command.

1947 - Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into the country's law.  The declaration creates the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council.

1948 - President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, that desegregates the United States military.

1953 - Fidel Castro and his followers attack on the Moncada Barracks.  This event sparks the Cuban Revolution.

1963 - An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia (now in the Republic of Macedonia), kills over 1,100 people.

1971 - The launch of Apollo 15 and the first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle.

1984 - The serial killer Ed Gein, dies at the age of 77 at the Mendota Mental Health Institute.

1989 - A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris Jr. for releasing a worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.