Today in 1775 Benjamin Franklin is named Postmaster-General by the United States Congress; and in 1908 The FBI is founded.

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

Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

EVENTS:        615 – K'inich Janaab' Pakal I, aged 12, is crowned ruler of the Mayan city of Palenque.

1309 – Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor is recognised as King of the Romans by Pope Clement V.

1469 – Wars of the Roses: Forces of Edward IV of England defeat those of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick in the Battle of Edgecote Moor.

1533 – Atahualpa dies at the hands of Francisco Pizarro's Conquistadors, marking the end of the Inca Empire.

1581 – The northern Low Countries declare independence from King Philip II of Spain.

1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match takes place in Guildford, Surrey, England.

1758 – French and Indian War: The Siege of Louisbourg ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

1775 – Benjamin Franklin is named Postmaster-General by the United States Congress.

1788 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution, becoming the 11th State.

1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway opens in South London.

1805 – An earthquake in central Italy kills an estimated 26,000 people.

1822 – José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, present-day Ecuador, to meet with Simon Bolivar.

1822 – First day of the three-day Battle of Dervenakia between the Ottoman Empire, led by Mahmud Dramali Pasha, and a Greek Revolutionary force led by Theodoros Kolokotronis.

1847 – Liberia becomes independent, with Joseph Jenkins Roberts being its first President.

1861 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan assumes control of the Army of the Potomac, following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Bull Run.

1882 – Boer settlers found the Republic of Stellaland in present-day South Africa.

1882 – Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal is first performed in Bayreuth, Bavaria.

1887 – Unua Libro, the 'First book of Esperanto', is published.

1891 – France takes control of Tahiti.

1908 – The FBI is founded.

1910 – The Rail Tunnel under the Detroit River linking Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan is opened.

1914 – Serbia and Bulgaria interrupt their diplomatic relationship.

1936 – The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.

1936 – Edward VIII of the United Kingdom unveils the Canadian Vimy Memorial.

1937 – Spanish Civil War: End of the Battle of Brunete.

1944 – World War II: The Soviet army enters German-occupied Lviv, in present-day Ukraine.

1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hits the United Kingdom.

1945 – The British Conservative Party under Winston Churchill loses the General Election to the Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee.

1945 – The Potsdam Declaration is signed.

1946 – Aloha Airlines begins service.

1947 – The National Security Act of 1947 is signed by US President Harry S. Truman.

1948 – Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981, desegregating the United States Military.

1951 – Walt Disney movie Alice in Wonderland has its first showing in London.

1952 – Argentina's First Lady Eva Perón dies aged 33.

1953 – Begin of the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro later helps to found the 26th July Movement.

1956 – The Suez Crisis begins, after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal.

1957 – President Carlos Castillo Armas of Guatemala is assassinated.

1958 – The Explorer 4 space probe is launched.

1963 – A earthquake strikes Skopje in the present-day Republic of Macedonia, killing around 1,100 people.

1965 – The Maldives gain full independence from the United Kingdom.

1971 – Apollo 15 launches from the Kennedy Space Center, with David Scott, James Irwin and Alfred Worden on board, to the Moon.

1974 – Konstantinos Karamanlis forms the Greek Government.

1977 – The National Assembly of Quebec imposes the use of French as an official language of the Provincial Government.

1990 – The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into law by US President George H. W. Bush.

1994 – Boris Yeltsin orders the removal of Russian troops from Estonia.

1994 – A bomb explodes outside the Israeli Embassy in London.

1998 – Cambodia holds its first election since regaining full independence.

2005 – Space Shuttle Discovery launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is the first Space Shuttle mission since the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of February 1, 2003.

2005 – Nearly a meter of rain falls in one day in Mumbai, causing flooding.

2006 – A conference begins in Rome, Italy to discuss a solution to the Israel-Lebanon War, though without the participation of Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria.

2008 – 56 people are killed in a bombing in Ahmedabad, India.

2013 – 2013 Cleveland, Ohio, missing trio: Ariel Castro pleads guilty to all charges in order to avoid the death penalty. He commits suicide in prison on September 3.

2016 – Mass murder with knife is carried out in an institution of Sagamihara in Japan for persons with disabilities out of disability hate crime; 19 people are killed.

2016 – Solar Impulse 2 becomes the first solar-powered aircraft to complete a flight around the world.

2016 – Roman Catholic priest Jacques Hamel is murdered at his church in Normandy, France, by an attacker linked to the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

2016 – Hillary Clinton is officially nominated by the Democratic Party for President of the United States, becoming the first woman to be nominated for this position by a major US political party.

2017 – US President Donald Trump announces via Twitter that he intends to ban Transgender people from serving in the United States Military.

2019 – The 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, begin.

BIRTHS:        1739 – George Clinton, 4th Vice President of the United States and 1st State Governor of New York (d. 1812)

1756 – Maria Fitzherbert, first wife of King George IV of the United Kingdom (d. 1837)

1782 – John Field, Irish composer (d. 1837)

1791 – Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer (d. 1844)

1895 – Gracie Allen, American actress and comedienne (d. 1964)

1904 – Edwin Albert Link, American inventor of the flight simulator (d. 1981)

1909 – Vivian Vance, American actress (d. 1979)

1918 – Marjorie Lord, American actress (d. 2015)

1922 – Blake Edwards, American movie director (d. 2010)

1922 – Jason Robards, American actor (d. 2000)

1926 – James Best, American actor (d. 2015)

1928 – Joe Jackson, patriarch of the Jackson musical family (d. 2018)

1928 – Stanley Kubrick, American movie director (d. 1999)

1940 – Mary Jo Kopechne, American aide to Robert F. Kennedy (d. 1969)

1943 – Mick Jagger, British musician

1945 – Helen Mirren, British actress

1956 – Dorothy Hamill, American figure skater

1957 – Yuen Biao, Chinese actor

1959 – Kevin Spacey, American actor

1961 – Gary Cherone, American singer-songwriter

1964 – Sandra Bullock, American actress

1965 – Jeremy Piven, American actor

1973 – Kate Beckinsale, British actress

DEATHS:     1471 – Pope Paul II (b. 1417)

1863 – John J. Crittenden, Governor of Kentucky (b. 1786)

1863 – Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas (b. 1793)

1867 – King Otto of Greece (b. 1815)

1925 – William Jennings Bryan, American politician (b. 1860)

1926 – Robert Todd Lincoln, American lawyer and politician (b. 1843)

1952 – Eva Perón, wife of Argentine President Juan Perón (b. 1919)

1984 – George Gallup, American statistician (b. 1901)

1992 – Mary Wells, American singer (b. 1943)

1995 – George Romney, Governor of Michigan and father of Mitt Romney (b. 1907)

2015 – Bobbi Kristina Brown, American media personality and singer (b. 1993)

2015 – Vic Firth, American musician and instruments manufacturer (b. 1930)

2017 – Patti Deutsch, American actress (b. 1943)

2017 – June Foray, American voice actress (b. 1917)

2023 – Sinéad O'Connor, Irish singer-songwriter (b. 1966)