Once Upon A Time – July 26 – 1803 – Surrey Iron Railway, World’s First Public Railway, Opens In South London

657 Battle of Siffin during the first Muslim civil war between Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muawiyah I beside Euphrates River

1519 Francisco Pizarro receives royal charter for the west coast of South America

1533 Francisco Pizarro orders the death of the last Sapa Inca Emperor, Atahualpa

1803 The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world’s first public railway, opens in south London

1908 United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation)

1945 Declaration of Potsdam: US, Britain and China demand the unconditional surrender of Japan during WWII

1953 Fidel Castro leads a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, intended to spark a revolution in Cuba

Historical Events Today Events in 2023

Today in Film & TV

1896 Vitascope Hall, 1st permanent for-profit movie theatre, opens in New Orleans

Today in Music

1882 Richard Wagner’s opera “Parsifal” premieres in Bayreuth, Germany

Today in Sport

1984 Expos Pete Rose ties Ty Cobb with his 3,502nd single

1903 – Horatio Nelson Jackson, Sewall K. Crocker, and a bulldog named Bud complete 1st automobile trip across the United States; San Francisco to New York in a 2-cylinder Winton (63 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes)

2017 – 3 live king cobras reported found inside potato chip cans by customs officials in Los Angeles

Famous Weddings

1797 US President John Quincy Adams (29) weds Louisa Johnson (22) at All Hallows Barking parish in London

1849 Prime Minister of Canada John Abbott (28) weds Mary Bethune at bride’s parents home

1895 Physicist and chemist Maria Skłodowska (27) weds physicist Pierre Curie (36) in Sceaux, France