Today in History: 6 Magnitude Earthquake in Tunceli: 95 Dead, 127 Injured

July 26 is the 207nd (208rd in leap years) day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. There are 158 days left until the end of the year.

Railways

• 26 July Bed and dining wagons were put into service with the contract signed with 1926 International Hospital.

Events 

• 1552 – Temeşvar fortress was conquered by the Ottoman army.
• 1581 – Provinces of North Holland affiliated to the Union of Utrecht, (South Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Groningen and Friesland) King of Spain II. They declared their independence from Felipe.
• 1788 - New York ratified the US Constitution, making it the 11th state of the USA.
• 1882 – Richard Wagner's Parsifal The opera was staged for the first time in Bayreuth, Germany.
• 1887 - Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof publishes his first book on the artificial language Esperanto (in Russian).
• 1891 - France annexed Tahiti.
• 1914 - Serbia and Bulgaria broke off diplomatic relations.
• 1919 – Balıkesir Congress started (until 30 July).
• 1923 - Scottish engineer John Logie Baird patented the first mechanical television.
• 1933 - Adolf Hitler; announced that disabled Germans with vision and hearing problems will be sterilized.
• 1944 – II. World War II: The first German V-2 rocket crashes on British soil.
• 1944 – II. World War II: The Soviet Army enters western Ukraine, ending the Nazi occupation.
• 1945 – In the United Kingdom, the Labor Party wins the election: Clement Attlee becomes Prime Minister. Winston Churchill lost.
• 1948 - André Marie becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 1951 – The first oil in Turkey was found in the Raman Mountain region.
• 1952 – King Farouk I of Egypt is deposed by the Free Officers Movement and exiled from Egypt. (he handed it over to his son Fuad II).
• 1953 - The Cuban revolution begins with the Moncada barracks raid. The leader of the revolutionaries, Fidel Castro, was arrested.
• 1956 – Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal after the World Bank stopped supporting the construction of the Aswan Dam.
• 1957 - Guatemalan President Carlos Castillo Armas is assassinated.
• 1963 – Earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia: 1100 dead and 100 people on the street.
• 1967 – An earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter scale in the town of Pulumur, Tunceli: 95 dead, 127 injured.
• 1974 – Foreign Minister Turan Güneş joined the ceasefire negotiations for Cyprus. "The ceasefire does not mean that we do not use certain of our rights," Güneş said.
• 1974 – After seven years of military rule in Greece, a civilian Government is established under the Prime Minister of Constantine Karamanlis.
• 1994 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin approves the withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia.
• 1995 – Istanbul Gold Exchange was opened.

Births 

• 1678 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1711)
• 1856 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish journalist, critic, and playwright (d. 1950)
• 1861 – Vaja Pshavela, Georgian writer and poet (d. 1915)
• 1875 - Carl Gustav Jung, German psychoanalyst (d. 1961)
• 1885 – André Maurois, French writer (d. 1967)
• 1893 – George Grosz, German painter (d. 1959)
• 1894 – Aldous Huxley, English writer (d. 1963)
• 1898 – Günther Korten, soldier in Nazi Germany (d. 1944)
• 1917 – Alberta Adams, American jazz and blues singer (d. 2014)
• 1922 Blake Edwards, American director (The Pink Panther director of the movie) (d. 2010)
• 1922 Jason Robards, American actor (d. 2000)
• 1928 – Francesco Cossiga, Italian politician (d. 2010)
• 1928 – Stanley Kubrick, American film director (d. 1999)
• 1939 - John Howard, 25th Prime Minister of Australia
• 1943 – Mick Jagger, English rock musician, composer, and founding member of the Rolling Stones
• 1945 – Metin Cekmez, Turkish actor
• 1947 – Wiesław Adamski, Polish sculptor (d. 2017)
• 1949 – Roger Taylor, English drummer
• 1950 - Susan George, English actress
• 1955 – Alexandrs Starkovs, Latvian football player and manager
• 1955 – Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan
• 1956 – Kevin Spacey, American actor and director
• 1964 – Sandra Bullock, American actress
• 1966 - Anna Rita Del Piano, Italian actress
• 1967 - Jason Statham, English actor
• 1968 – Vítor Pereira, Portuguese football player and manager
• 1968 – Olivia Williams, English television, theater and film actress
• 1969 – Tanni Grey-Thompson, Welsh politician, television presenter and former wheelchair racer
• 1973 - Kate Beckinsale, English actress
• 1973 – Metin Uzun, Turkish football player and coach
• 1977 – Martin Laursen, Danish national football player and manager
• 1979 – Engin Altan Düzyatan, Turkish actor and presenter
• 1979 – Juliet Rylance, English actress and filmmaker
• 1980 – Jacinda Ardern is a New Zealand politician.
• 1981 – Vildan Atasever, Turkish actress and 42nd Golden Orange Film Festival Best Actress Award winner
• 1981 – Maicon, Brazilian actor
• 1983 - Christopher Lindsey, American professional wrestler
• 1983 - Delonte West, American former professional basketball player
• 1984 – Sabri Sarıoğlu, Turkish national football player
• 1985 – Gaël Clichy, French football player
• 1987 – Panagiotis Kone, Albanian-born Greek national football player
• 1987 – Fredy Montero, Colombian national football player
• 1987 – Evelina Sašenko Lithuanian pop and jazz singer
• 1988 – Sayaka Akimoto, Japanese singer, actress, host, and model
• 1993 – Elizabeth Gillies, American singer and actress
• 1993 – Ferda Yıldız, Turkish basketball player
• 1993 – Taylor Momsen, American singer and actress
• 1994 – Shmagi Bolkvadze, Georgian Greco-Roman wrestler

Deaths 

• 432 – Celestinus I was the pope between 10 September 422 and 26 July 432 (b. ?)
• 811 – Nikephoros I, Byzantine Emperor (b. ?)
• 1380 – Kōmyō was the second Northern Suitor in Japan during the Nanboku-chō period (b. 1322)
• 1471 – II. Paulus, pope from 1464-71 (b. 1417)
• 1533 – Atahualpa, thirteenth and last emperor of the Inca Empire (b. 1502)
• 1801 – Maximilian Franz von Österreich, German clergyman and politician (b. 1756)
• 1863 – Sam Houston, first President of Texas (Texas senator after joining the United States) (b. 1793)
• 1867 – Otto, first King of Greece (b. 1815)
• 1915 – James Murray, English lexicographer and philologist (b. 1837)
• 1925 – Gottlob Frege, German mathematician (b. 1848)
• 1928 – Tunalı Hilmi Bey, Turkish politician and one of the leading figures of the Turkism movement (b. 1871)
• 1930 – Pavlos Karolidis, one of the most outstanding Greek historians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (b. 1849)
• 1934 – Winsor McCay, American cartoonist and graphic artist (b. 1869 or 1871)
• 1941 – Henri Lebesgue, French mathematician (b. 1875)
• 1942 – Román Viñoly Barreto was a German-Argentine writer and journalist (b. 1900)
• 1944 – Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (b. 1878)
• 1952 – Eva Peron, Argentine politician and wife of Argentine President Juan Peron (b. 1919)
• 1953 – Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b. 1883)
• 1957 – Carlos Castillo Armas, President of Guatemala (b. 1914)
• 1960 – Cedric Gibbons, American art director and production designer (b. 1893)
• 1968 – Cemal Tollu, Turkish painter (b. 1899)
• 1971 – Diane Arbus, American photographer (b. 1923)
• 1973 – Konstandinos Georgakopoulos, Greek Prime Minister (b. 1890)
• 1978 – Hasan Ferit Alnar, Turkish composer and conductor (b. 1906)
• 1984 – Ed Gein, American serial killer (b. 1906)
• 1986 – Sadık Şendil, Turkish playwright (b. 1913)
• 1988 – Fazlur Rahman Malik, Pakistani academic, scholar and intellectual (b. 1919)
• 1993 – İbrahim Minnetoğlu, Turkish poet, journalist and columnist (b. 1920)
• 1995 – George W. Romney, American businessman and Republican Party politician (b. 1907)
• 2000 – John Tukey, American statistician (b. 1915)
• 2003 – İsmail Akbay, Turkish engineer (b. 1930)
• 2004 – Oğuz Aral, Turkish cartoonist (b. 1936)
• 2004 – Kamran Usluer, Turkish theater artist (b. 1937)
• 2009 – Merce Cunningham, American choreographer and dancer (b. 1919)
• 2010 – Edip Günay, Turkish musicologist (b. 1931)
• 2012 – Lupe Ontiveros, Mexican-born American actress (b. 1942)
• 2012 – Mary Tamm, English actress (b. 1950)
• 2013 – Sefika Akhundova, Azerbaijani composer (b. 1924)
• 2013 – JJ Cale, American musician, singer, and composer (b. 1938)
• 2013 – George P. Mitchell, American businessman (b. 1919)
• 2013 – Sung Jae-ki, South Korean philosopher and writer (b. 1967)
• 2015 – Bobbi Kristina Brown, American TV star, singer and model (b. 1993)
• 2015 – Joe Williams, American film critic, journalist, and author (b. 1958)
• 2017 – Magnus Böcker, Swedish businessman (b. 1961)
• 2017 – Patti Deutsch, American actress and comedian (b. 1943)
• 2017 – June Foray, American actress (b. 1917)
• 2017 – KE Mammen, Indian freedom fighter, activist (b. 1921)
• 2018 – Alfredo del Águila, Mexican former football player (b. 1935)
• 2018 – María Concepción César, Argentine actress, singer and dancer (b. 1926)
• 2018 – Aloyzas Kveinys, Lithuanian chess player (b. 1962)
• 2019 – Russi Taylor, American voice actor and actress (b. 1944)
• 2020 – Olivia de Havilland, English-French actress (b. 1916)
• 2020 – Francisco Frutos, Spanish politician (b. 1939)
• 2020 – Hans-Jochen Vogel, German lawyer and politician (b. 1926)