History of the Day for:
May 26
- 1521: The Edict of Worms outlawed Martin Luther and his followers, after his papal excommunication.
- 1805: Napoleon was crowned king of Italy.
- 1864: The Territory of Montana was formed.
- 1865: The last Confederate resistance of the American Civil War ended when Gen. Kirby Smith surrendered at Shreveport near New Orleans. The Confederates had already signed a surrender April 9.
- 1868: President Andrew Johnson was finally acquitted of impeachment charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors"; Irish nationalist Michael Barrett was hanged for a bomb attack at Clerkenwell, London the last public execution in England.
- 1874: Henri Farman, French aircraft designer who with his brother developed the biplane, was born.
- 1886: Entertainer Al Jolson was born.
- 1896: Nicholas II was crowned Tsar of Russia with a grand procession in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Moscow.
- 1907: Actor John Wayne entered this world as Marion Morrison.
- 1913: The Actors' Equity Association was organized.
- 1940: The evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, during WWII began.
- 1942: The Anglo-Soviet Treaty was signed in London, providing for full collaboration in World War II.
- 1967: The Beatles released "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
- 1969: The "Apollo Ten" astronauts returned to Earth after a successful rehearsal for the first manned moon landing.
- 1977: George Willig scaled New York's World Trade Center and was arrested at the top of the 110-story building.
- 1978: The first legal casino in the eastern U.S. opened in Atlantic City, N.J.
- 1988: The Edmonton Oilers completed a four?game sweep of the Boston Bruins to capture their fourth Stanley Cup in five seasons.
- 1991: Zviad Gamsakhurdia becomes the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era.
- 1991: Lauda Air Flight 004 explodes over rural Thailand, killing 223.
- 1992: Charles Geschke, co-founder of Adobe Systems, Inc. is kidnapped at gunpoint from the Adobe parking lot in Mountain View, California and is held hostage for a ransom of $650,000 in a rented house in Hollister, California. The FBI rescues him four days later.
- 1998: The United States Supreme Court rules that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.
- 1999: Manchester United become the first club in English football to win The Treble.
- 2003: Only three days after a previous record, Sherpa Lakpa Gelu climbs Mount Everest in 10 hours 56 minutes. The tourism ministry of Nepal confirms this record in July that year.
- 2004: The New York Times publishes an admission of journalistic failings, claiming that its flawed reporting and lack of skepticism towards sources during the buildup to the 2003 war in Iraq helped promote the belief that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
- 2004: The United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing.
- 2006: The May 2006 Java earthquake kills over 5,700 people, leaves 200,000 homeless.