This is a list of selected February 26 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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AS-201 -
Grand Canyon, Arizona -
Coin featuring bust of Valentinian I -
Robert Watson-Watt -
Superliner railcars -
Napoleon leaving Elba -
Takahashi Korekiyo -
"Livery Stable Blues"
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Liberation Day in Kuwait (1991) | needs more footnotes |
| 364 – Following the death of the Roman emperor Jovian, officers of the army at Nicaea in Bithynia selected Flavius Valentinianus to succeed him. | refimprove section |
| 1266 – Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: Manfred, King of Sicily, was killed in the Battle of Benevento against the forces of Charles of Anjou. | Too much uncited, including entire sections |
| 1909 – The first films made with Kinemacolor, the earliest successful colour motion picture process, were shown to the British general public. | unreferenced section |
| 1919 – U.S. president Woodrow Wilson signed a law that designated most of Arizona's Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River that is considered to be one of the major natural wonders of the world, as a national park. | GC: refimprove sections; GCNP: refimprove |
| 1946 – Finnish observers reported the first sightings of unidentified flying objects known as "ghost rockets", which have not yet been positively identified. | refimprove, needs more footnotes |
| 1966 – The Saturn IB rocket launched for the first time from Florida's Cape Canaveral. | no footnotes |
| 1993 – A bomb-laden van exploded underneath the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and injuring more than one thousand people. | refimprove sections, expansion |
| Herbert Henry Dow |b|1866| | Birthday uncited |
| Mary Whiton Calkins |d|1930 | unreferenced sections |
Eligible
- 1606 – Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon made the first recorded European landing in Australia, although he believed that he was on New Guinea.
- 1815 – Napoleon escaped from the Italian island of Elba (depicted), to which he had been exiled after the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau.
- 1903 – Storm Ulysses struck Ireland, felling thousands of trees and causing damage to up to a quarter of all houses in Dublin.
- 1917 – The Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded "Livery Stable Blues", the first jazz single ever released.
- 1935 – Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe reinstated, violating the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of World War I.
- 1935 – With the aid of a radio station in Daventry, England, and two receiving antennae, Scottish engineer and inventor Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrated the use of radar.
- 1936 – Imperial Japanese Army troops attempted a coup d'etat, occupying parts of Tokyo, and killing several politicians, including finance minister Takahashi Korekiyo.
- 1995 – Barings Bank, the oldest merchant bank in London, was declared insolvent after its head derivatives trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson, lost £827 million while making unauthorised trades on futures contracts.
- 2008 – In the first significant cultural visit from the United States to North Korea since the Korean War, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed in Pyongyang.
- 2012 – African-American teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by neighborhood-watch coordinator George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, prompting a nationwide controversy.
- 2013 – A hot air balloon crashed near Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 people in the deadliest ballooning disaster in history.
- Born/died this day: | John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford |d|1462| Lorenzino de' Medici |d|1548| Thomas-Alexandre Dumas |d|1806| Camille Flammarion |b|1842| Kenneth Edgeworth |b|1880| Reginald St John Battersby|b|1900| Howard Hanson |d|1981| Joseph Wapner |d|2017 |Raosaheb Gogte |d|2000|
- 747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the reign of the Babylonian king Nabonassar (name in Akkadian pictured) began, marking a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records.
- 1914 – RMS Britannic, the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line after RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
- 1979 – The Superliner railcar entered revenue service with Amtrak.
- 1993 – A van filled with explosives is detonated by terrorists under the Austin J. Tobin Plaza at the World Trade Center site, killing six and injuring over 1,000 others.
- 2014 – Former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao Kevin Lau was stabbed, prompting concerns and protests about media freedom.
- Fatima bint al-Ahmar (d. 1349)
- Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll (b. 1629)
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b. 1954)
- Jennie Smillie Robertson (d. 1981)