June 26 in History

The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought for control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fought between supporters of the House of Lancaster and House of York, two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflict resulted in the end of Lancaster's male line in 1471, leaving the Tudor family to inherit, through the female line, the Lancaster claim to the throne. Conflict was largely brought to an end upon the union of the two houses through marriage, creating the Tudor dynasty that would subsequently rule England.

The siege of Rhodes of 1522 was the second and ultimately successful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Knights of Rhodes from their island stronghold and thereby secure Ottoman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first siege in 1480 had been unsuccessful. Despite very strong defenses, the walls were demolished over the course of six months by Turkish artillery and mines.

Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.

Alexei Petrovich Romanov, was the Tsarevich of Russia, the eldest son of Tsar Peter I and his first wife, Eudoxia Lopukhina.

The Battle of Bloody Mose was a significant action of the War of Jenkins' Ear that took place on June 14, 1740, in Spanish Florida. Captain Antonio Salgado commanded a Spanish column of 300 regular troops, backed by the free black militia under Francisco Menéndez and allied Seminole warriors consisting of Indian auxiliaries. They stormed Fort Mose, a strategically crucial position newly held by 170 British soldiers under Colonel John Palmer. Palmer and his garrison had taken the fort from the Spanish as part of James Oglethorpe's offensive to capture St. Augustine.

William IV was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded his elder brother George IV, becoming the last king and penultimate monarch of the United Kingdom's House of Hanover.

The June Days were an uprising staged by French workers from 22 to 26 June 1848. It was in response to plans to close the National Workshops, created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a minimal source of income for the unemployed. The National Guard, led by General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, was called out to quell the rebellion. Over 4,500 people were either killed or injured, while 4,000 insurgents were deported to French Algeria. The uprising marked the end of the hopes of a "democratic and social republic" and the victory of the liberals over the Radical Republicans.

Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan was a French chemist and pharmacist who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds. Among his other contributions, Moissan discovered moissanite and contributed to the development of the electric arc furnace. Moissan was one of the original members of the International Atomic Weights Committee.

The 1906 Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, commonly known as the 1906 French Grand Prix, was a motor race held on 26 and 27 June 1906, on closed public roads outside the city of Le Mans. The Grand Prix was organised by the Automobile Club de France (ACF) at the prompting of the French automobile industry as an alternative to the Gordon Bennett races, which limited each competing country's number of entries regardless of the size of its industry. France had the largest automobile industry in Europe at the time, and in an attempt to better reflect this the Grand Prix had no limit to the number of entries by any particular country. The ACF chose a 103.18-kilometre (64.11 mi) circuit, composed primarily of dust roads sealed with tar, which would be lapped six times on both days by each competitor, a combined race distance of 1,238.16 kilometres (769.36 mi). Lasting for more than 12 hours overall, the race was won by Ferenc Szisz driving for the Renault team. FIAT driver Felice Nazzaro finished second, and Albert Clément was third in a Clément-Bayard.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

The Military Government of Santo Domingo was a provisional military government established during the American occupation of the Dominican Republic that lasted from May 15, 1916 to September 18, 1924. The United States aimed to force the Dominicans to repay their large debts to European creditors, whose governments threatened military intervention. On May 13, 1916, Rear Admiral William B. Caperton forced the Dominican Republic's Secretary of War Desiderio Arias, who had seized power from President Juan Isidro Jimenes Pereyra, to leave Santo Domingo by threatening the city with naval bombardment.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving US president and the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth focused on US involvement in World War II. A member of the Democratic Party, Roosevelt served in the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913 and as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1932.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Grumman F6F Hellcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft of World War II. Designed to replace the earlier F4F Wildcat and to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, it was the United States Navy's dominant fighter in the second half of the Pacific War. In gaining that role, it prevailed over its faster competitor, the Vought F4U Corsair, which initially had problems with visibility and carrier landings.

The Battle of Osuchy was one of the largest battles between the Polish resistance and Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, a part of the Zamość Uprising. It took place near the village of Osuchy in the Solska Forest on 25–26 June 1944 during the German anti-partisan Operation Sturmwind II. The battle ended with the defeat of the local resistance forces that suffered heavy casualties.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

Shirley Hardie Jackson was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Her writing career spanned over two decades, during which she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories.

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph Stalin's secret police chiefs, serving as head of the NKVD from 1938 to 1945 during the country's involvement in the Second World War. He was also a serial rapist and had killed some of his victims. His victims were primarily young women and girls.

Jens Ingemar "Ingo" Johansson was a Swedish professional boxer who competed from 1952 to 1963. He held the world heavyweight title from 1959 to 1960 and was the fifth heavyweight champion born outside the United States. Johansson won the title by defeating Floyd Patterson via third-round stoppage, after flooring him seven times in that round. For this achievement, Johansson was awarded the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year—the only non-American in its entire 27-year first run—and was named the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year and Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.

Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country in the Indian Ocean that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's fourth-largest island, the second-largest island country, and the 46th-largest country overall. Its capital and largest city is Antananarivo.

Pope John Paul II was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century, as well as the third-longest-serving pope in history, after St. Peter and Pius IX.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. An agency of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. A leading American counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes. The FBI maintains a list of its top 10 most wanted fugitives.

Air Canada Flight 189 was a scheduled flight from Ottawa to Vancouver via Toronto and Winnipeg. On June 26, 1978, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 operating the flight crashed on takeoff in Toronto, killing two passengers; 105 people survived.

The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus, and is the best-selling airliner ever built. The A320 aircraft programme was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the family was followed by the stretched A321, the shorter A319, and the shortest variant, the A318 . Final assembly takes place in Toulouse in France; Hamburg in Germany; Tianjin in China since 2009; and Mobile, Alabama, in the United States since April 2016.

Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is a member of Qatar's royal family, the House of Thani. He was the ruling Emir of Qatar from 1995 until 2013 when he abdicated the throne, handing power to his fourth son Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who was born to his second wife, Moza bint Nassir. The Qatari government refers to him as the Father Emir.

Joanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, philanthropist, producer, and screenwriter. She is best known for writing Harry Potter, a seven-volume series about a young wizard which is the best-selling book series in history, with over 600 million copies sold. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted itself the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

Pope Benedict XVI was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Following his resignation, he chose to be known as "pope emeritus", a title he held until his death on 31 December 2022.

The Waldo Canyon fire was a forest fire that started approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of Colorado Springs, Colorado on June 23, 2012, and was declared 100 percent contained on July 10, 2012, after no smoke plumes were visible on a small portion of the containment line on Blodgett Peak. The fire was active in the Pike National Forest and adjoining areas, covering a total of 18,247 acres. The fire had caused the evacuation of over 32,000 residents of Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs and Woodland Park, several small mountain communities along the southwestern side of U.S. Highway 24, and partial evacuation of the United States Air Force Academy. There were 346 homes destroyed by the fire. U.S. Highway 24, a major east–west road, was closed in both directions. The Waldo Canyon Fire resulted in insurance claims totaling more than US $453.7 million. It was the most destructive fire in Colorado state history, as measured by the number of homes destroyed, until the Black Forest Fire surpassed it almost a year later when it consumed 486 homes and damaged 28 others.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted itself the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, programmer, and publisher who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from Chelsea Manning, a United States Army intelligence analyst: footage of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad showing war crimes committed by the U.S. Army, U.S. military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and U.S. diplomatic cables. Assange has won over two dozen awards for publishing and journalism.