657 Mu'awiyan defeats Caliph Ali in the Battle of Siffin in Mesopotamia.
1526 Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon and colonists leave Santo Domingo for Florida.
1529 Francisco Pizarro receives a royal warrant to "discover and conquer" Peru.
1758 British forces capture France's Fortress of Louisbourg after a month siege.
1759 The French relinquish NY Fort Ticonderoga to the British under Gen. Amherst.
1775 Congress establishes a postal system with Ben Franklin as postmaster general.
1790 An attempt at a counter-revolution in France is put down by National Guard.
1794 The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus, France.
1830 King Charles X of France issues ordinances limiting civil rights of citizens.
1847 Liberia becomes the first African colony to become an independent state.
1848 The French army suppresses the Paris uprising.
1886 William Gladstone is replaced by Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister of England.
1918 Britain's top war ace, Edward Mannock, shot down on the Western Front.
1920 The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified.
1948 President Truman ends discrimination and segregation in the U.S. military.
1953 Cuban revolution begins against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Born on July 26
1796 George Catlin, American artist and author.
1856 George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (Pygmalion, Heartbreak House).
1875 Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist.
1893 George Grosz, German satiric artist.
1895 Gracie Allen, actress, wife and foil of George Burns.
1895 Robert Graves, poet and novelist ( I Claudius).
1914 Erskine Hawkins, trumpeter.
1928 Stanley Kubrick, film director (Spartacus, 2001: A Space Odyssey).
1928 Bernice Rubens, Welsh novelist and filmmaker.
1943 Mick [Michael Phillip] Jagger, musician, member of the Rolling Stones.
Historynet.com