What Happened On This Date In History -- August 26

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55 BC - Julius Caesar invades Britain.

1071 - Battle of Manzikert: The Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine
Empire at Manzikert.

1278 - Ladislaus IV of Hungary and Rudolph I of Germany defeat Premysl
Ottokar II of Bohemia in the Battle of Marchfield near Dürnkrut in
Moravia.

1346 - Hundred Years' War: The military supremacy of the English
longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights is
established at the Battle of Crécy.

1498 - Michelangelo commissioned to carve the Pietà.

1778 - The first ascent of Triglav, the highest mountain of Slovenia.

1789 - Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen approved by
Constituent Assembly at Palace of Versailles.

1818 - The first Illinois Constitution was signed in Kaskaskia.

1839 - The ship Amistad is captured off Long Island.

1847 - Liberia was proclaimed an independent republic.

1858 - First news dispatch by telegraph.

1862 - American Civil War: The Second Battle of Bull Run begins.

1883 - Eruption of Mount Krakatoa.

1914 - World War I: Germans defeat Russians in Battle of Tannenberg, a
decisive engagement which resulted in the almost complete destruction
of the Russian 2nd Army.

1920 - 19th amendment to U.S. Constitution gives women the right to
vote.

1928 - May Donoghue drinks a bottle of ginger beer at a cafe in
Paisley, Scotland and finds the remains of a snail in the bottle. She
launches a civil action against the drink manufacturer which becomes
one of the famous cases in English Common Law; that of Donoghue v.
Stevenson.

1936 - The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, calling for most British troops to
leave Egypt (except those guarding the Suez Canal) was signed in
Montreux, Switzerland. (It was abrogated by Egypt in 1951.)

1939 - The first Major League Baseball game is telecast, a
double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at
Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn, New York.

1940 - Chad is the first French colony to join the Allies under the
administration of Félix Éboué, France's first black colonial
governor.

1944 - World War II: Charles de Gaulle enters Paris.

1957 - The USSR announces the successful test of an ICBM - a "super
long distance intercontinental multistage ballistic rocket ... a few
days ago," according to the Soviet news agency, TASS.

1961 - The official International Hockey Hall of Fame opened in
Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1968 - The Beatles' "Hey Jude" is released (in a shortened version) as
a single in the United States under the Apple Records label, to spend
nine weeks as number one, a record for any Beatles single,.

1970 - The third annual Isle of Wight rock festival, which would
feature the last UK performance from Jimi Hendrix, opens in Great
Britain.

1972 - Games of the XX Olympiad open in Munich, Germany.

1976 - Raymond Barre becomes Prime Minister of France.

1974 - Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo and non-stop across
the Atlantic, died at his home in Hawaii; he was 72.

1977 - Charter of the French Language is adopted by the National
Assembly of Quebec

1978 - Papal conclave, 1978 (August): Pope John Paul I is elevated to
the Papacy. Also, Sigmund Jähn becomes first German cosmonaut on board
of the Soyuz 31 spacecraft.

1980 - John Birges plants a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline,
Nevada.

1985 - 13-year-old AIDS patient Ryan White began "attending" classes at
Western Middle School in Kokomo, Ind., via a telephone hook-up at his
home; school officials had barred Ryan from attending classes.

1986 - In the New York "preppie murder" case, 18-year-old Jennifer
Levin was found strangled in Central Park; Robert Chambers later
pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

1987 - President Ronald Wilson Reagan proclaims September 11, 1987 as
9-1-1 Emergency Number Day.

1988 - Merhan Karimi Nasseri arrives at Charles de Gaulle International
Airport.

1995 - The International Rugby Board lifts all restrictions on payments
relating to the game of Rugby Union, thus bringing the game's amateur
age to an end.

1997 - Beni-Ali massacre in Algeria; 60-100 people killed.

2002 - Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Éric Gagné converts his first of a
record 84 consecutive successful save opportunities.

2003 - Columbia Accident Investigation Board releases its final reports
on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

2005 - Fiji's High Court rules that the island's sodomy law is
unconstitutional.

2004 - The nation's supply of vaccine for the impending flu season took
a big hit when Chiron Corp. announced it had found tainted doses in its
factory and would hold up shipment of about 50 million shots. Also in
2004, at the Athens Olympics, the U.S. women's soccer team won the gold
medal by beating Brazil, 2-1, in overtime. Also in 2004 pop singer
Laura Branigan ("Gloria") died in East Quogue, New York; she was 47.

2006 - Basshunter's Boten Anna is the first Swedish-speaking number
1-hit in the Dutch Top 40