On this day in history

August 26

30 births · 15 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

1972 Summer Olympics

54 years ago

Born this day

1910

Mother Teresa

Would be 116

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Oldest record

1500th

Theodoric the Great

death anniversary

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Famous births30

1676 · 350 yrs

Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whig statesman who is generally regarded as the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain, serving from 1721 to 1742.

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PoliticsDied aged 68

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1728 · 298 yrs

Johann Heinrich Lambert

Johann Heinrich Lambert (German:; French: Jean-Henri Lambert; 26 or 28 August 1728 – 25 September 1777) was an Alsatian polymath from the Republic of Mulhouse—then an associate of the Swiss Confederacy—who made fundamental contributions to mathematics, physics (particularly optics), philosophy, astronomy, and map…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 49

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1743 · 283 yrs

Antoine Lavoisier

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( lə-VWAH-zee-ay; French:; 26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794), also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution, was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology.

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ScienceDied aged 50

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1819 · 207 yrs

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the husband of Queen Victoria and consort of the British monarch from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861. Victoria granted him the title Prince Consort in 1857.

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RoyaltyDied aged 42

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1870 · 156 yrs

Aleksandr Kuprin

Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (Russian: Александр Иванович Куприн; 7 September 1870 – 25 August 1938) was a Russian writer best known for his novels The Duel (1905) and Yama: The Pit (1915), as well as Moloch (1896), Olesya (1898), "Captain Ribnikov" (1906), "Emerald" (1907), and The Garnet Bracelet (1911) – the latter…

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LiteratureDied aged 67

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1873 · 153 yrs

Lee de Forest

Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor, electrical engineer, and early pioneer in electronics of fundamental importance. He invented the first practical electronic amplifier, the three-element "Audion" triode vacuum tube in 1908.

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TechnologyDied aged 87

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1880 · 146 yrs

Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire ( ə-POL-in-AIR, French:; born Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Aleksander Apolinary Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a Polish-French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Polish, Swiss and Italian descent.

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LiteratureWould be 146

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1882 · 144 yrs

James Franck

James Franck (German:; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German–American physicist who shared the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom." Franck completed his doctorate in 1906 and his habilitation in 1911 at the Frederick…

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ScienceWould be 144

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1897 · 129 yrs

Yun Po-sun

Yun Po-sun (Korean: 윤보선, pronounced or; 26 August 1897 – 18 July 1990) was a South Korean politician and activist who served as the second president of South Korea from 1960 to 1962.

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PoliticsWould be 129

View profile Photo (modified): 공보처 홍보국 사진담당관 · Public domain

1910 · 116 yrs

Mother Teresa

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Albanian:; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity and a Catholic saint.

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ReligionWould be 116

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1914 · 112 yrs

Julio Cortázar

Julio Florencio Cortázar (Latin American Spanish:; 26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984) was an Argentine and naturalised French novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and translator.

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LiteratureWould be 112

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1918 · 108 yrs100 Club

Katherine Johnson

Creola Katherine Johnson (née Coleman, previously Goble; August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician and human computer whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights.

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ScienceWould be 108

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Showing 12 of 30

Famous deaths15

AD 526 · 1500 yrs

Theodoric the Great

Theodoric (or Theoderic) the Great (about 454 – 30 August 526), also called the Amal, was king of the Ostrogoths (471–526), and ruler of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy between 493 and 526, regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a patrician of the Eastern Roman Empire.

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RoyaltyDied aged 72

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1346 · 680 yrs

John of Bohemia

John of Bohemia, also called the Blind or of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Jang de Blannen; German: Johann der Blinde; Czech: Jan Lucemburský; 10 August 1296 – 26 August 1346), was the King of Bohemia and titular King of Poland from 1310, and Count of Luxembourg from 1313.

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RoyaltyDied aged 50

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1713 · 313 yrs

Denis Papin

Denis Papin FRS (French pronunciation:; 22 August 1647 – 26 August 1713) was a French Huguenot physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker, the steam engine, the centrifugal pump, and a submersible boat.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 66

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1723 · 303 yrs

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek ( AHN-tə-nee vahn LAY-vən-hook, -⁠huuk; Dutch:; 24 October 1632 – 26 August 1723) was a Dutch microbiologist and microscopist in the Golden Age of Dutch art, science and technology.

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ScienceDied aged 90

View profile Photo (modified): Rijksmuseum · CC0

1850 · 176 yrs

Louis-Philippe I

Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed the Citizen King, was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, the penultimate monarch of France, the last French monarch to bear the title "King", and the only French monarch to descend from the Orléans branch of the Bourbon family.

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RoyaltyDied aged 76

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1910 · 116 yrs

William James

William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist.

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PhilosophyDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Alice Boughton · Public domain

1945 · 81 yrs

Franz Werfel

Franz Viktor Werfel (German:; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was a Czech novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933, English tr.

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LiteratureWould be 136

View profile Photo (modified): Carl Van Vechten · Public domain

1958 · 68 yrs

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams ( RAYF vawn WIL-yəmz; 12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years.

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MusicDied aged 85

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1974 · 52 yrs

Charles Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for over 33 hours.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

AviationWould be 124

View profile Photo (modified): Harris & Ewing · Public domain

1978 · 48 yrs

Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer (French:; 28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French-American actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in American films during the 1930s.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 127

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1979 · 47 yrs

Mika Waltari

Mika Toimi Waltari (pronounced; 19 September 1908 – 26 August 1979) was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian (Finnish: Sinuhe egyptiläinen).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 118

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1987 · 39 yrs

Georg Wittig

Georg Wittig (German:; 16 June 1897 – 26 August 1987) was a German chemist who reported a method for synthesis of alkenes from aldehydes and ketones using compounds called phosphonium ylides in the Wittig reaction. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Herbert C. Brown in 1979.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 129

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Showing 12 of 15

Events5

1071 · 955 yrs

Battle of Manzikert

The Battle of Manzikert or Malazgirt was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire on 26 August 1071 near Manzikert, Iberia (modern Malazgirt in Muş Province, eastern Turkey).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1346 · 680 yrs

Battle of Crécy

The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France between a French army commanded by King Philip VI and an English army led by King Edward III.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1972 · 54 yrs

1972 Summer Olympics

The 1972 Summer Olympics (German: Olympische Sommerspiele 1972), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad (German: Spiele der XX.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sports

1999 · 27 yrs

Second Chechen War

The Second Chechen War (Russian: Втора́я чече́нская война́, Chechen: Шолгӏа оьрсийн-нохчийн тӏом, lit. 'Second Russian-Chechen War') took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 to April 2009.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2026 · 0 yrs

2026 Nepal–Tibet floods

On the morning of 26 August 2026, a series of flash floods and debris flows destroyed the Gyirong Port on the China–Nepal border and struck dozens of settlements along a 72 km (45 mi) stretch of the Trishuli River in Nepal. These events are also known as the 2026 Nepal-China floods, Bhotekoshi flood, or Rasuwa flood.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Disaster

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