June 26 is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 188 days remaining until the end of the year.
Up to 1950
- 4 – Roman Emperor Augustus adopts Tiberius.
- 221 – Roman Emperor Elagabalus adopts his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir.
- 363 – Roman Emperor Julian is killed during retreat from the Sassanid Empire. Troops on the battlefield proclaim Jovian Emperor.
- 687 – Benedict II becomes Pope.
- 1409 – Western Schism: The Catholic church is led into a double schism as Petros Philargos is crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XII in Avignon.
- 1483 – Richard III becomes king of England.
- 1492 – Mont Aiguille, in the Western Alps in France is climbed for the first time by Antoine de Ville.
- 1541 – Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima.
- 1718 – Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia (son of Peter I of Russia) dies mysteriously after his father sentenced him to death for plotting against him. (occurred on July 7 in the Gregorian calendar)
- 1723 – After a siege, and bombardment by cannon, Baku surrenders to the Russians.
- 1740 – A combined force of Spanish, free Blacks, and allied Indians defeat a British garrison at the Siege of Fort Mose near St. Augustine, Florida in the War of Jenkins' Ear.
- 1819 – The bicycle is patented.
- 1830 – King George IV of the United Kingdom dies. His brother succeeds him as William IV of the United Kingdom.
- 1843 – The Treaty of Nanking comes into effect, effectively giving Hong Kong to the United Kingdom.
- 1848 – End of the June Days Uprising in Paris.
- 1857 – First Investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London.
- 1860 – In Durban, South Africa, Africa's first railway is opened.
- 1870 – Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the US.
- 1879 – Egypt sells its parts of the Suez Canal to the United Kingdom.
- 1886 – Henri Moissan isolates elemental fluorine for the first time.
- 1889 – Bangui, now-capital city of the Central African Republic, is founded.
- 1905 – A telegram is sent to Iceland for the first time, from Cornwall.
- 1906 – The 1906 French Grand Prix is held, as the first Grand Prix motor racing event ever held.
- 1917 – World War I: US troops arrive in France to fight alongside Britain and France against Germany.
- 1920 – Antonio Maria da Silva becomes Prime Minister of Portugal.
- 1924 – American occupying forces leave the Dominican Republic.
- 1934 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions.
- 1934 – Initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.
- 1940 – World War II: Under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and northern part of Bukovina.
- 1945 – The United Nations Charter is signed.
- 1945 – In Germany, the CDU political party is founded.
- 1948 – The Western allies start an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union has blockaded West Berlin.
1951 – 2000
- 1954 – The FIFA World Cup's most goal-filled match occurs in Lausanne, Switzerland, as the Austria national football team wins 7-5 against the Switzerland national football team.
- 1959 – Ingemar Johansson of Sweden becomes Boxing Heavyweight World Champion when he defeats Floyd Patterson.
- 1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens, opening North America's Great Lakes to ocean-going ships.
- 1960 – Former British Protectorate of Somaliland (British Somaliland) gains its independence.
- 1960 – Madagascar becomes independent from France.
- 1963 – John F. Kennedy speaks the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner" at a speech in Berlin.
- 1964 – The Beatles release the album A Hard Day's Night.
- 1966 – The Basel Canton in Switzerland allows women to vote.
- 1973 – On Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 persons were killed at an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
- 1974 – The first retail product (a pack of chewing gum) was sold using a barcode reader.
- 1975 – Indira Gandhi establishes authoritarian rule in India.
- 1976 – The CN Tower in Toronto is officially opened.
- 1977 – The last concert of Elvis Presley takes place.
- 1978 – Air Canada Flight 221 to Toronto overruns the runway and crashes into the Etobicoke Creek ravine.
- 1979 – Muhammad Ali retires.
- 1987 – Convention against Torture entered into force.
- 1991 – The Yugoslav People's Army begins the Ten-Day War in Slovenia and Croatia.
- 1995 – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak survives an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
- 1995 – Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani becomes Emir of Qatar after deposing his father, Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani in a bloodless coup.
- 1996 – Journalist Veronica Guerin is shot dead in Dublin, Ireland.
- 1997 – Bertie Ahern becomes Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland.
- 1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment.
- 1997 – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the U.S.), the first book in J.K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series, is published.
- 2000 – Human Genome Project: The completion of the first rough map of the human genetic code is announced.
From 2001
- 2003 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sodomy laws are unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas.
- 2006 – East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri resigns after weeks of political unrest.
- 2007 – In Zheijiang, China, the Huangzhou Bay Bridge is opened.
- 2007 – Lina Hahne, a 23-year-old medical student, is crowned Miss Sweden after the original winner was dethroned.
- 2013 – Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard loses a vote within the Australian Labor Party against previous Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who succeeds her the next day.
- 2014 – 2014 FIFA World Cup: FIFA hands out its heaviest FIFA World Cup ban to Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez for biting Italy's Giorgio Chiellini two days earlier. The Uruguayan Football Association appeals the decision.
- 2015 – Islamist Terror attacks occur in France, Kuwait and Tunisia. A local businessman is decapitated in Southeast France; At least 27 people killed in a bombing at a mosque in Kuwait; A gun attack on foreign tourists in Sousse, Tunisia, kills at least 38 people.
- 2015 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules that all states of the United States are to recognize same-sex marriage.
- 2016 – Chile defeats Argentina in the final of the Copa América Centenario. Argentina's Lionel Messi announces his retirement from the national team after the match.
- 2017 – Theresa May's Conservative Party agrees a deal with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party in order to stay in power in the United Kingdom.
- 2018 – The United States Supreme Court, in a majority decision, rules in favour of Donald Trump's travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries.
- 2018 – Activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeats incumbent United States Representative Joe Crowley in an upset victory in the Democratic Party primary for New York's 14th congressional district.
Up to 1900
- 1501 – Cho Shik, Korean scholar, politician, educator and poet (d. 1572)
- 1557 – Leandro Bassano, Italian painter (d. 1622)
- 1575 – Anne Catherine of Brandenburg, Queen of Denmark and Norway (d. 1612)
- 1582 – Johannes Schultz, German composer (d. 1653)
- 1653 – Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, chief minister of France under Louis XV (d. 1743)
- 1681 – Hedvig Sophia of Sweden (d. 1708)
- 1689 – Edward Holyoke, American clergyman and academic (d. 1769)
- 1726 – Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia (d. 1796)
- 1730 – Charles Messier, French astronomer (d. 1817)
- 1741 – John Langdon, American politician (d. 1819)
- 1753 – Antoine de Rivarol, French writer (d. 1801)
- 1760 – Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein (d. 1836)
- 1786 – Sunthorn Phu, Thai poet (d. 1855)
- 1817 – Branwell Bronte, English painter and poet (d. 1848)
- 1819 – Abner Doubleday, American major general (d. 1893)
- 1821 – Bartolomé Mitre, 6th President of Argentina (d. 1906)
- 1824 – William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Irish physicist (d. 1907)
- 1826 – Adolf Bastian, German polymath (d. 1905)
- 1839 – Sam Watkins, American Confederate soldier and writer (d. 1901)
- 1854 – Robert Laird Borden, eighth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1937)
- 1865 – Bernard Berenson, art connoisseur (d. 1959)
- 1866 – George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, English financier of Egyptian excavations (d. 1923)
- 1871 – Johan Anker, Norwegian sailor (d. 1940)
- 1880 – Mitchell Lewis, American movie actor (d. 1956)
- 1892 – Pearl S. Buck, American writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1973)
- 1893 – Big Bill Broonzy, American blues musician and composer (d. 1958)
- 1895 – George Hainsworth, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1956)
- 1897 – Viola Dana, American actress (d. 1987)
- 1898 – Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer (d. 1978)
- 1899 – Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Alexandra Fyodorovna (d. 1918)
- 1899 – Elvy Kalep, Estonian pilot and artist (d. 1989)
1901 – 1950
- 1902 – Hugues Cuénod, Swiss tenor (d. 2010)
- 1904 – Peter Lorre, Hungarian actor (d. 1964)
- 1904 – Frank Scott Hogg, Canadian astronomer (d. 1951)
- 1906 – Edward Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana (d. 1979)
- 1908 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile (d. 1973)
- 1909 – Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager (d. 1997)
- 1909 – Wolfgang Reitherman, German-American animator, director and producer (d. 1985)
- 1911 – Babe Didrikson Zaharias, American athlete and golfer (d. 1956)
- 1912 – Jay Silverheels, actor (d. 1980)
- 1913 – Aimé Césaire, French-Martinican poet and politician (d. 2008)
- 1913 – Maurice Wilkes, British computer scientist (d. 2010)
- 1914 – Shapour Bakhtiar, Iranian politician (d. 1991)
- 1914 – Laurie Lee, English poet, novelist and screenwriter (d. 1997)
- 1914 – Wolfgang Windgassen, German tenor (d. 1974)
- 1916 – Giuseppe Taddei, Italian baritone (d. 2010)
- 1919 – Richard Neustadt, political historian (d. 2003)
- 1920 – Jean-Pierre Roy, Canadian baseball player (d. 2014)
- 1922 – Eleanor Parker, American actress (d. 2013)
- 1922 – Dick Smith, American special effects make-up artist (d. 2014)
- 1924 – Richard Bull, American actor (d. 2014)
- 1925 – Pavel Belyayev, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 1970)
- 1925 – Wolfgang Unzicker, German chess player (d. 2006)
- 1927 – Dimitar Iliev Popov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria (d. 2015)
- 1928 – Yoshiro Nakamatsu, Japanese inventor
- 1929 – Milton Glaser, American graphic designer, typographer and teacher
- 1930 – Jackie Fargo, American professional wrestler (d. 2013)
- 1933 – Claudio Abbado, Italian conductor (d. 2014)
- 1933 – David Winnick, English politician
- 1934 – Dave Grusin, American jazz pianist
- 1934 – Jeremy Wolfenden, British journalist (d. 1965)
- 1936 – Robert Maclennan, British politician
- 1936 – Jean-Claude Turcotte, Canadian cardinal (d. 2015)
- 1936 – Benjamin Adekunle, Nigerian general (d. 2014)
- 1936 – Hal Greer, American basketball player
- 1937 – Robert Coleman Richardson, American physicist (d. 2013)
- 1938 – Neil Abercrombie, American politician, 7th Governor of Hawaii
- 1939 – Chuck Robb, American politician, 64th Governor of Virginia
- 1942 – Gilberto Gil, first Minister of Culture of Brazil, singer, songwriter and musician
- 1944 – Wolfgang Weber, German footballer
- 1945 – Dwight York, musician, fashion consultant, cult leader and child molester
- 1947 – Peter Sloterdijk, German philosopher
- 1948 – Sergei Bodrov, Russian movie director, screenwriter and producer
- 1949 – Fredric Brandt, American dermatologist (d. 2015)
- 1950 – Michael Paul Chan, American actor
1951 – 1975
- 1951 – Gary Gilmour, Australian cricketer (d. 2014)
- 1951 – Jürgen Rüttgers, German politician
- 1952 – Gordon McQueen, Scottish footballer
- 1952 – Simon Mann, English mercenary
- 1954 – Luis Arconada, Basque-Spanish footballer
- 1954 – Steve Barton, American actor, singer and dancer (d. 2001)
- 1955 – Mick Jones, British musician, guitarist with The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite
- 1956 – Chris Isaak, American pop singer and actor
- 1956 – Patrick Mercer, British politician
- 1957 – Pietro Paolo Virdis, Italian footballer
- 1957 – Philippe Mabboux, French organist and composer
- 1957 – Patty Smyth, American singer-songwriter
- 1958 – Pedro Cateriano, former Prime Minister of Peru
- 1958 – Riho Sibul, Estonian singer and guitarist
- 1959 – Mark McKinney, Canadian actor and screenwriter
- 1960 – Mark Durkan, Northern Irish politician
- 1961 – Greg Lemond, cyclist
- 1961 – Toni Barry, British voice actress
- 1961 – Terri Nunn, American singer (Berlin)
- 1962 – Jerome Kersey, American basketball player (d. 2015)
- 1963 – Richard Garfield, American game designer
- 1963 – Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian CEO of YUKOS Oil Company
- 1966 – Dany Boon, French actor, director and screenwriter
- 1967 – Olivier Dahan, French director and screenwriter
- 1967 – Tarun Sagar, Indian Jain monk (d. 2018)
- 1968 – Gudni Th. Johannesson, Icelandic historian and academic, 6th President of Iceland
- 1968 – Jovenel Moïse, President of Haiti (d. 2021)
- 1968 – Shannon Sharpe, American football player and commentator
- 1968 – Paolo Maldini, Italian footballer
- 1968 – Armand de Las Cuevas, French cyclist (d. 2018)
- 1969 – Colin Greenwood, musician, Radiohead
- 1969 – Francis Magee, Irish actor
- 1969 – Geir Moen, Norwegian sprinter
- 1970 – Paul Thomas Anderson, American director, producer and screenwriter
- 1970 – Irv Gotti, American record producer
- 1970 – Sean Hayes, American actor, singer and producer
- 1970 – Chris O'Donnell, American actor
- 1972 – Caroline Nokes, English politician
- 1972 – Jussi Sydanmaa, Finnish musician (Lordi)
- 1973 – Gretchen Wilson, American country music singer
- 1974 – Derek Jeter, American baseball player
- 1975 – Jean-Paul Abalo, Togolese footballer
From 1976
- 1976 – Ed Jovanovski, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1976 – Chad Pennington, American football player
- 1976 – Alexander Zakharchenko, Ukrainian separatist leader (d. 2018)
- 1977 – Kubo Tite, cartoonist
- 1979 – Ryan Tedder, American singer, musician and producer (OneRepublic)
- 1980 – Jason Schwartzman, American actor
- 1980 – Michael Vick, American football player
- 1981 – Paolo Cannavaro, Italian footballer
- 1983 – Felipe Melo, Brazilian footballer
- 1984 – Raymond Felton, American basketball player
- 1984 – Deron Williams, American basketball player
- 1984 – Priscah Jeptoo, Kenyan runner
- 1984 – Aubrey Plaza, American actress
- 1985 – Arjun Kapoor, Indian actor
- 1985 – Daniela Sabatino, Italian footballer
- 1985 – Urgyen Trinley Dorje, Tibetan spiritual leader
- 1986 – Xisco, Spanish footballer
- 1987 – Samir Nasri, French footballer
- 1988 – Amanda Marchant, English singer
- 1988 – Sam Marchant, English singer
- 1988 – Dakota L. Meyer, American soldier
- 1990 – Belaynesh Oljira, Ethiopian runner
- 1992 – Joel Campbell, Costa Rican footballer
- 1992 – Melanie Amaro, British-American singer
- 1992 – Jennette McCurdy, American actress and singer
- 1993 – Ariana Grande, American actress and singer
- 2005 – Princess Alexia of the Netherlands
Up to 1950
- 363 – Julian, Roman Emperor (killed in battle) (b. 331)
- 1291 – Eleanor of Provence, queen of Henry III of England
- 1541 – Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conqueror of Peru (murdered)
- 1718 – Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia (b. 1690), died on July 7 in the Gregorian calendar
- 1784 – Caesar Rodney, 4th Governor of Delaware (b. 1728)
- 1808 – Ludwik Tyszkiewicz, Polish poet and politician (b. 1748)
- 1810 – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, French inventor (b. 1740)
- 1830 – King George IV of the United Kingdom (b. 1762)
- 1836 – Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, French composer (b. 1706)
- 1856 – Max Stirner, German philosopher (b. 1806)
- 1870 – Armand Barbès, French revolutionary (b. 1809)
- 1878 – Mercedes of Orléans, Queen of Spain (b. 1860)
- 1883 – Edward Sabine, Irish-English astronomer, geophysicist and ornithologist (b. 1788)
- 1918 – Peter Rosegger, Austrian poet (b. 1843)
- 1922 – Albert I, Prince of Monaco (b. 1841)
- 1938 – Daria Pratt, American golfer (b. 1859)
- 1939 – Ford Maddox Ford, English writer (b. 1873)
- 1943 – Karl Landsteiner, Austrian doctor, won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1868)
- 1945 – Emil Hacha, 3rd President of Czechoslovakia (b. 1872)
- 1946 – Yosuke Matsuoka, Japanese politician (b. 1880)
- 1947 – Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1870)
- 1949 – Kim Gu, Korean politician (b. 1876)
1951 – 2000
- 1951 – Frank Ferera, Hawaiian musician (b. 1885)
- 1955 – Engelbert Zaschka, German helicopter pioneer (b. 1895)
- 1956 – Clifford Brown, American jazz saxophonist (b. 1930)
- 1957 – Alfred Döblin, German writer (b. 1878)
- 1957 – Malcolm Lowry, English poet and author (b. 1909)
- 1958 – Andrija Štampar, physician and United Nations diplomat (b. 1888)
- 1958 – George Orton, Canadian athlete (b. 1873)
- 1964 – Gerrit Rietveld, Dutch architect (b. 1888)
- 1975 – St. Josemaría Escrivá, Spanish Roman Catholic priest (b. 1902)
- 1979 – Akwasi Afrifa, Ghanaian politician (b. 1936)
- 1990 – Anni Blomqvist, Finnish writer (b. 1909)
- 1993 – William H. Riker, political scientist (b. 1920)
- 1996 – Veronica Guerin, Irish journalist (b. 1958)
- 1997 – Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Hawaiian singer (born 1959)
From 2001
- 2002 – Jay Berwanger, American football player (b. 1914)
- 2002 – Arnold Brown, 11th General of the Salvation Army (b. 1913)
- 2003 – Sir Denis Thatcher Bt., husband of Margaret Thatcher (b. 1915)
- 2003 – Strom Thurmond, United States Senator (b. 1902)
- 2003 – Marc-Vivien Foé, Cameroonian footballer (b. 1975)
- 2004 – Yash Johar, Indian movie producer (b. 1929)
- 2005 – Richard Whiteley, British game show host (b. 1943)
- 2007 – Liz Claiborne, Belgian-born fashion designer (b. 1929)
- 2007 – Jupp Derwall, German footballer and manager (b. 1927)
- 2010 – Algirdas Brazauskas, Lithuanian President (b. 1932)
- 2011 – Jan van Beveren, Dutch footballer (b. 1948)
- 2012 – Nora Ephron, American writer, screenwriter and movie director (b. 1941)
- 2013 – Marc Rich, Belgian-American businessman (b. 1934)
- 2013 – Bert Stern, American photographer (b. 1929)
- 2013 – Kimberly McCarthy, American murderer (b. 1961)
- 2014 – Ivan Plyushch, Ukrainian politician (b. 1941)
- 2014 – Howard Baker, American politician and diplomat, United States Senator for Tennessee (b. 1925)
- 2014 – Wolf Koenig, German-born Canadian filmmaker (b. 1927)
- 2014 – Ron Hall, Australian rules footballer (b. 1945)
- 2015 – Yevgeny Primakov, former Prime Minister of Russia (b. 1929)
- 2015 – Richard Matt, American murderer and prison escapee (b. 1966)
- 2016 – Austin Clarke, Canadian novelist (b. 1934)
- 2016 – Barbara Goldsmith, American author (b. 1931)
- 2016 – Ryan Jimmo, Canadian mixed martial artist (b. 1981)
- 2016 – Kim Sung-min, South Korean actor (b. 1973)
- 2016 – Kavalam Narayana Panicker, Indian dramatist, theatre director and poet (b. 1928)
- 2016 – Rostislav Yankovsky, Belarussian actor (b. 1930)
- 2017 – Desh Bandhu Gupta, Indian businessman (b. 1938)
- 2017 – Doug Peterson, American yacht designer (b. 1945)
- 2017 – Habib Thiam, Prime Minister of Senegal (b. 1933)
- 2017 – Alice Trolle-Wachtmeister, Swedish countess (b. 1926)
- 2017 – Claude Fagedet, French photographer (b. 1928)
- 2018 – Andrey Dementyev, Russian poet (b. 1928)
- 2018 – Henri Namphy, President of Haiti (b. 1932)
- 2018 – Daniel Pilon, Canadian actor (b. 1940)
- 2018 – Big Bill Bissonnette, American jazz trombonist (b. 1937)
- 2018 – Ignatios Lappas, Greek Orthodox bishop (b. 1946)
- 2018 – Phil Rodgers, American golfer (b. 1938)
- 2019 – Georges Brossard, Canadian entomologist (b. 1940)
- 2019 – Douglas Fielding, British actor and narrator (b. 1946)
- 2019 – Manuel Real, American lawyer and politician (b. 1924)
- 2019 – Andrey Nikolayevich Sakharov, Russian historian (b. 1930)
- 2019 – Max Wright, American actor (b. 1943)
- Independence Day in Madagascar
- Flag Day (Romania)
- Army and Navy Day (Azerbaijan)
- International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
- International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
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