U.S. postal system established

She never much liked life in the White House.

On July 26, 1863, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his men are captured at Salineville, Ohio, during a spectacular raid on the North. Starting in July 1862, Morgan made four major raids on Northern or Northern-held territory over the course of a year. Although they were of limited strategic significance, the […]

On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China. On July 24, Tokyo decided to strengthen its position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. Given that France had long occupied parts of the region, […]

On July 26, 1943, the day after Nazi ally Benito Mussolini is deposed by Italy’s Grand Council—who nominally claim they will keep fighting with the Germans—Adolf Hitler calls the act “naked treachery.” In a military briefing at his headquarters, the Führer declares the Italians are buying time before negotiating surrender terms with the WWII Allies […]

President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act, which becomes one of the most important pieces of Cold War legislation. The act established much of the bureaucratic framework for foreign policymaking for the next 40-plus years of the Cold War. By July 1947, the Cold War was in full swing. The United States and […]

The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the British and French-owned Suez Canal. The Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas across Egypt, was completed by French engineers in 1869. For the next 87 years, it remained largely under British and French control, and Europe depended on it as […]

On July 26, 1984, Ed Gein, a serial killer infamous for skinning human corpses, dies of complications from cancer at the Mendota Mental Health Institute at age 77. Gein served as the inspiration for writer Robert Bloch’s character Norman Bates in the 1959 novel “Psycho,” which in 1960 was turned into a film starring Anthony Perkins […]

The U.S. 500, the most prestigious race in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series, dissolves into tragedy on July 26, 1998, when three fans are killed and six others wounded by flying debris from a car at Michigan Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. CART (later known as Champ Car) was an open-wheel racing circuit created […]