Today:
1346 – English forces under King Edward III defeated a much larger French army at the Battle of Crécy during the Hundred Years’ War. The English longbow played a major role in the victory.
1768 – Captain James Cook departed Plymouth, England, aboard HMS Endeavour on his first voyage to the Pacific. The expedition would observe the transit of Venus and explore New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coastline.
1791 – John Fitch received a U.S. patent for his steamboat design. Fitch successfully operated an early passenger steamboat service years before Robert Fulton’s better-known commercial success.
1920 – The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was formally certified, guaranteeing that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of sex. August 26 is now observed in the United States as Women’s Equality Day.
1939 – The first televised Major League Baseball game was broadcast from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, where the Cincinnati Reds played a doubleheader against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1957 – The Soviet Union announced that it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, marking an important development in the Cold War nuclear arms race.
1968 – The Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago amid enormous political and social tensions. Demonstrations against the Vietnam War culminated in violent confrontations between protesters and police.
1974 – Charles Lindbergh died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, at age 72. In 1927, Lindbergh had become internationally famous for making the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
1978 – Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected pope and took the name John Paul I. He died only 33 days later, giving him one of the shortest papacies in modern history.
1996 – Former South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death for his role in the 1979 military coup and the violent suppression of the 1980 Gwangju uprising. His sentence was later commuted, and he was pardoned in 1997.