“Arearea (Joyfulness),” by Paul Gauguin (Collection of the Musée d’Orsay)

Today in History

• The first recorded women’s cricket match takes place (1745)
• The Second Continental Congress establishes what will later become the US Post Office Department, appointing Benjamin Franklin as Postmaster-General (1775)
• The Surrey Iron Railway, possibly the world’s first public railway, opens in south London (1803)
• Liberia declares independence (1847)
• American Civil War: Union General George McClellan takes command of the Army of the Potomac (1861)
• France annexes Tahiti (1891)
• The USS Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with elements of the warhead for the Hiroshima atomic bomb (1945)
• The CIA, the Department of Defense, the US Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council are established with the signing of the National Security Act (1947)
• US President Harry S. Truman orders the desegregation of the US military (1948)
• Fidel Castro launches the first attack in the Cuban Revolution (1953)
• Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal (1956)
• Apollo 15 takes off (1971)

Birthdays

• George Bernard Shaw, playwright (1856)
• Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875)
• Sad Sam Jones, baseball player (1892)
• Aldous Huxley, writer (1894)
• Gracie Allen, actress and comedian (1895)
• Paul Gallico, author (1897)
• Vivian Vance, actress (1909)
• Marjorie Lord, actress (1918)
• Jean Shepherd, radio host and screenwriter (1921)
• Blake Edwards, filmmaker (1922)
• Jason Robards, actor (1922)
• Jan Berenstain, co-creator of the Berenstain Bears (1923)
• Stanley Kubrick, filmmaker (1928)
• Dobie Gray, singer-songwriter (1940)
• Mick Jagger, member of the Rolling Stones (1943)
• Helen Mirren, actress (1945)
• Dorothy Hammil, figure skater (1956)
• Nana Visitor, actress (1957)
• Kevin Spacey, actor and director (1959)
• Sandra Bullock, actress (1964)
• Jeremy Piven, actor (1965)
• Kate Beckinsale, actress (1973)

Deaths

• Sam Houston, Texas independence leader (1863)
• William Jennings Bryan, politician and speechmaker (1925)
• Robert Todd Lincoln, Secretary of War, son of Abraham Lincoln (1926)
• Fred Duesenberg, car manufacturer (1932)
• Winsor McCay, cartoonist (1934)
• Eva Perón, Argentine politician (1952)
• Diane Arbus, photographer (1971)
• George Gallup, pollster (1984)
• William Mitchell, chemist who created Pop Rocks and Cool Whip (2004)
• Merce Cunningham, choreographer (2009)
• June Foray, voice actress (2017)

Holidays and Celebrations

• Day of National Significance (Barbados)
• Day of the National Rebellion (Cuba)
• Independence Day (Liberia)
• Independence Day (Maldives)
• Kargil Victory Day (India)

July 26 is the 207th day of the year (208th in leap years). There are 158 days remaining until the end of the year.