- July 26, 0657 Battle of Siffin.
- July 26, 0811 “Battle of Pliska; Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I is slain, his heir Stauracius is seriously wounded.”
- July 26, 0920 Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Lon against the Muslims at Pamplona.
- July 26, 1139 “Afonso, then a count, is proclaimed first king of Portugal and declares independence from Leon.”
- July 26, 1309 Henry VII is recognized King of the Romans by Pope Clement V.
- July 26, 1581 “Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Oath of Abjuration). The declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II.”
- July 26, 1775 The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department was established by the Second Continental Congress.
- July 26, 1775 The Post Office is esablished by the Continental Congress with Ben Franklin as postmaster general.
- July 26, 1788 New York becomes 11th state to ratify US constitution
- July 26, 1790 US passes Assumption bill making US responsible for state debts
- July 26, 1803 “The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world’s first public railway, opens in south London.”
- July 26, 1812 Frigate Essex captures British brig Leander
- July 26, 1822 “Jos de San Martn arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet with Simn Bolvar.”
- July 26, 1835 The first sugar cane plantation started in Hawaii
- July 26, 1847 “Liberia, settled in Africa by freed U.S. slaves, becomes the first African colony to become an independent state.”
- July 26, 1848 The first Woman’s Rights Convention (Senecca Falls NY)
- July 26, 1863 “At Salineville, OH John Hunt Morgan & 364 troops surrender”
- July 26, 1865 Patrick Francis Healy is first black awarded PhD (Louvain Belgium)
- July 26, 1866 Canoe Club opens in England
- July 26, 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.”
- July 26, 1882 Premiere of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal at Bayreuth.
- July 26, 1887 The first Esperanto book published
- July 26, 1891 France annexes Tahiti.
- July 26, 1908 Federal Bureau of Investigation established
- July 26, 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).
- July 26, 1912 First airborne radio communications from naval aircraft to ship (LT John Rodgers to USS Stringham)