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Discover what happened on October 26 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

October 26

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1972

Discover what happened on December 24 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

December 24

Discover what happened on May 31 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

May 31

Discover what happened on April 4 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

April 4

As World War II raged on, Allied troops made their first landing in Europe on the island of Sicily. Russian forces turned back German invaders in the Battle of Stalingrad. In the Pacific, Japanese troops evacuated Guadalcanal after bloody battles with U.S. troops. In the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Polish resistance fighters tried and failed to stop the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps. Back on the American homefront, crooner Bing Crosby scored a huge hit with the song “White Christmas.”

1943

In 1942, the U.S. Navy defeated the Japanese Navy in the Battle of Midway, a turning point of the war in the Pacific, while in Germany, Nazi officials met to plan the “Final Solution” and Anne Frank’s family went into hiding. As FDR ordered Japanese Americans into wartime incarceration camps, false reports of a Japanese attack set California skies ablaze with anti-aircraft fire in the “Battle of Los Angeles.” Americans supported the war effort with scrap drives and victory gardens.

1942

In 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as America’s 16th president. Just weeks later, the newly formed Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, igniting the American Civil War. To fund the conflict, Congress enacted the country’s first income tax. Elsewhere in the world, multiple states on the Italian Peninsula united to form the Kingdom of Italy, while multiple European powers invaded Mexico to collect unpaid debts. Back in Britain, The Times gave readers the first-ever published weather forecast.

1861

1973

In 1865, the American Civil War came to an end, President Lincoln was assassinated and the 13th amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in the U.S. The Secret Service came into being, originally created to prevent widespread counterfeiting that plagued the financial system. Elsewhere in the world, rebels in the Dominican Republic forced out Spanish occupiers to restore their country’s independence, and in England, Lewis Carroll published “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” 

1865

Discover what happened on May 10 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

May 10

In “the Trial of the Century,” Bruno Richard Hauptmann went before a New Jersey jury in 1935 for the murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby son. In Germany, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of citizenship. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. The first canned beer went on sale in Richmond, Virginia, and Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio. Lawrence of Arabia died in England following a motorcycle accident, and Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.

1935

Discover what happened on April 8 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

April 8

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January 27

1988

Discover what happened on June 25 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

June 25

As Europe struggled to recover from WWI, two major figures of the next war ascended. In Germany, Adolph Hitler became leader of the Nazi Party, while Benito Mussolini was elected to Italy’s parliament, soon becoming prime minister and then, dictator. In America, the Tulsa Race Massacre took hundreds of Black lives, an atrocity largely covered up for decades. Meanwhile, Black culture began flourishing in the Harlem Renaissance, and Pittsburgh’s KDKA broadcast the first live sporting event on radio: a boxing match.

1921

1851

After the highly contested 1876 U.S. presidential election, the Compromise of 1877 put Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House. In exchange, post-Civil War federal oversight of Southern affairs known as Reconstruction ended—and, with it, any effort toward protecting Black citizens’ civil and political rights. The first general strike in U.S. history—by more than 100,000 workers—halted the nation’s railroads. Thomas Edison demonstrated his latest invention, the phonograph, while in Moscow, Tchaikovsky’s opera “Swan Lake” premiered in Moscow.

1877

In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation creating Yosemite National Park. In South Dakota, years of conflict between the U.S. government and the Lakota Indians culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre and the deaths of at least 150 Native people and 25 U.S. cavalry members. Lakota resistance leader Sitting Bull was killed during an arrest attempt. Notable births of 1890 included Agatha Christie, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight Eisenhower, Groucho Marx, Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley and fried-chicken impresario Colonel Harland Sanders.

1890

Discover what happened on January 2 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

January 2

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August 1

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July 23

Discover what happened on May 18 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

U.S. Presidents ‑ This Day In History

Fire destroys Thomas Jefferson library

FDR signs Emergency Relief Appropriation Act

President Nixon refuses to hand over tapes

Three U.S. presidents close chapters on the Cold War

Eisenhower assumes command of U.S. troops in Europe

George W. Bush is suspended from flying with the Air National Guard

President Harding publicly condemns lynching

Rutherford B. Hayes has first phone installed in White House

Newspaper prints scathing report about First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln

President Harrison welcomes Alice Sanger as first female staffer

Future President Ronald Reagan serves in film unit

President Lincoln dreams about his assassination