Once Upon A Time – June 26 – 2016 – Panama Canal’s 3rd set Of Locks Opens For Commercial Traffic

363 Roman Emperor Julian is killed during retreat from the Sassanid Empire. General Jovian is proclaimed Emperor by troops on the battlefield.

1794 Battle of Fleurus: major victory by forces of the First French Republic under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan over the Coalition Army (Great Britain, Hanover, Dutch Republic, and Habsburgs) first use of reconnaissance balloon

1857 The first 62 recipients are awarded the Victoria Cross for valour in the Crimean war by Queen Victoria

1917 1st US troops arrive in France during World War I

1945 United Nations Charter signed by 50 nations in San Francisco

2016 Panama Canal’s third set of locks opens for commercial traffic, doubling the Canal’s capacity at an estimated cost of $5.25 billion

Historical Events Today
Today in Film & TV
1925 “The gold rush”, directed, starring and written by Charlie Chaplin, is released

Today in Music
1870 Richard Wagner’s opera “Valkyrie”, second in his Ring Cycle premieres in Munich, featuring “Ride of the Valkyries”

Today in Sport
2017 America’s Cup: Emirates Team New Zealand defeat Oracle Team USA 7-1 in Bermuda, Peter Burling (26) youngest ever helmsman

MORE FACTS…
1284 According to the Lüneburg manuscript, a piper leads 130 children of Hamelin away

1974 The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio

Famous Weddings
1739 Taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus (32) weds Sara Elisabeth Moræa

1912 US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (24) weds Janet Pomeroy Avery at Auburn, New York

1915 Poet T. S. Eliot (26) weds governess Vivienne Haigh-Wood (27) at Hampstead Register Office in London