Historical Events on Thursday, 26th March

26/03/2024

The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses following a collision between the MV Dali container ship and one of the bridge's support pillars, killing six people.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge was a highway bridge that crossed the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor/Port. It was opened on March 23, 1977, to carry the Baltimore Beltway between Dundalk and Hawkins Point.

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26/03/2017

Russia-wide anti-corruption protests in 99 cities. The Levada Center survey showed that 38% of surveyed Russians supported protests and that 67 percent held Putin personally responsible for high-level corruption.

The 2017–2018 Russian protests were a long series of countrywide street protest actions and demonstrations in the Russian Federation, which were primarily concerned with suppressing corruption in the Russian government and abandoning the planned increase of retirement age.

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26/03/2010

The South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan is torpedoed, killing 46 sailors. After an international investigation, the President of the United Nations Security Council blames North Korea.

ROKS Cheonan (PCC-772) was a Pohang-class corvette of the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN), commissioned in 1989. On 26 March 2010, she broke in two following an explosion and sank near the sea border with North Korea, killing 46 sailors. An investigation conducted by an international team of experts from South Korea, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Sweden concluded that Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo launched by a North Korean Yeono-class midget submarine.

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26/03/2005

Around 200,000 to 300,000 Taiwanese demonstrate in Taipei in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of China.

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, lies between the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. It has an area of 35,808 square kilometres, with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanized population is concentrated. The combined territories under ROC control consist of 168 islands in total covering 36,193 square kilometres. The largest metropolitan area is formed by Taipei, New Taipei City, and Keelung. With around 23.9 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries.

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26/03/1998

During the Algerian Civil War, the Oued Bouaicha massacre sees fifty-two people, mostly infants, killed with axes and knives.

The Algerian Civil War, known in Algeria as the Black Decade, was a civil war fought between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups from 11 January 1992 to 8 February 2002. The war began slowly, as it initially appeared the government had successfully crushed the Islamist movement, but armed groups emerged to declare violent jihad, and by 1994, violence had reached such a level that it appeared the government might not be able to withstand it. By 1996–97, it had become clear that the Islamist resistance had lost its popular support, although fighting continued for several years after.

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26/03/1997

Thirty-nine bodies are found in the Heaven's Gate mass suicides.

Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement known primarily for the mass suicides of its members in 1997. Often described as a cult, it was founded in 1974 and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985), known within the movement as Do and Ti, respectively. Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972 and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid-1970s. In 1976, a core group of a few dozen members stopped recruiting and instituted a monastic lifestyle.

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26/03/1991

Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay sign the Treaty of Asunción, establishing Mercosur, the South Common Market.

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country located in the southern cone of South America and with a claimed portion of Antarctica. It covers an area of 2,780,085 km2 (1,073,397 mi2), making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourth-largest country in the Americas, and the eighth-largest country in the world. Argentina shares the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, and is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. Argentina is a federal state subdivided into twenty-three provinces, and one autonomous city, which is the federal capital and largest city of the nation, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and a part of Antarctica.

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Singapore Airlines Flight 117 is hijacked by four Pakistani terrorists and diverted to Changi Airport.

Singapore Airlines Flight 117 was a regularly-scheduled Singapore Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. On 26 March 1991 the Airbus A310-324 serving the flight was hijacked en route by four Pakistani terrorists. The aircraft landed in Singapore. The hijackers, who were members of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), demanded the release from jail of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who later became President of Pakistan, as well as other PPP members.

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26/03/1982

A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, commonly called the Vietnam Memorial, is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the United States Armed Forces who served in the Vietnam War. The two-acre (8,100 m2) site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those service members who died or remain missing as a result of their service in Vietnam and South East Asia during the war. The Memorial Wall was designed by American architect Maya Lin and is an example of minimalist architecture. The Wall, completed in 1982, has since been supplemented with the statue Three Soldiers in 1984 and the Vietnam Women's Memorial in 1993.

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26/03/1981

Social Democratic Party (UK) is founded as a party.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was a centrist to centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. The party supported a mixed economy, electoral reform, European integration and a decentralised state while rejecting the possibility of trade unions being overly influential within industrial relations. The SDP officially advocated social democracy, and unofficially for social liberalism as well.

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26/03/1979

Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel peace treaty in Washington, D.C.

Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the 3rd president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad on 6 October 1981. Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk I in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as the vice president twice and whom he succeeded as president in 1970. In 1978, Sadat and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, signed a peace treaty in cooperation with United States President Jimmy Carter, for which they were recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.

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An Interflug Ilyushin Il-18 crashes at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport during a rejected takeoff, killing 10.

Interflug GmbH was the national airline of East Germany from 1963 to 1991. Based in East Berlin, it operated scheduled and chartered flights to European and intercontinental destinations out of its hub at Berlin Schönefeld Airport, focusing on Comecon countries. Interflug also had significant crop dusting operations. Following German reunification, the company was liquidated.

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26/03/1975

The Biological Weapons Convention comes into force.

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use. The treaty's full name is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction.

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26/03/1971

East Pakistan, then a province of Pakistan, declares its independence from Pakistan to form Bangladesh; the Bangladesh War of Independence begins.

East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1956 and 1971, restructured and renamed from the province of East Bengal and covering the territory of the modern country of Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, with a coastline on the Bay of Bengal. To distinguish this region from India's state West Bengal, East Pakistan was known as "Pakistani Bengal". East Pakistanis were popularly known as "Pakistani Bengalis". In 1971, East Pakistan became the newly independent state Bangladesh, which means "country of Bengal" or "country of Bengalis" or "land of Bengalis" in the Bengali language.

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26/03/1970

South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu implements a land reform program to solve the problem of land tenancy.

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered recognition in 1949 as the associated State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon. Since 1950, it was a member of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. Following the 1954 partition of Vietnam, it became known as South Vietnam and was established as a republic in 1955. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the communist-controlled Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

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26/03/1967

Ten thousand people gather for one of many Central Park be-ins in New York City.

In the 1960s, several "be-ins" were held in Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, to protest against various issues such as U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and racism.

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26/03/1958

The United States Army launches Explorer 3.

Explorer 3 was an American artificial satellite launched into medium Earth orbit in 1958. It was the second successful launch in the Explorer program, and was nearly identical to the first U.S. satellite Explorer 1 in its design and mission.

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The African Regroupment Party is launched at a meeting in Paris.

The African Regroupment Party was a political party in the French African colonies.

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26/03/1955

Pan Am Flight 845/26 ditches in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon, killing four.

Pan Am Flight 845/26 was a four-engined Boeing 377 Stratocruiser named Clipper United States and registered as N1032V. It departed Portland International Airport in Oregon on a flight to Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii on 26 March 1955. The aircraft was en route and about 35 miles (56 km) off the Oregon coast when at 11:12 Pacific Standard Time the No. 3 engine and propeller tore loose from the wing causing a loss of control. The aircraft was ditched.

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26/03/1954

Nuclear weapons testing: The Romeo shot of Operation Castle is detonated at Bikini Atoll. Yield: 11 megatons.

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been carried out since 1945. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Because of their destruction and fallout, testing has seen opposition by civilians as well as governments, with international bans having been agreed on. Thousands of tests have been performed, with most in the second half of the 20th century.

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26/03/1945

World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends as the island is officially secured by American forces.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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26/03/1942

The Holocaust: The first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

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26/03/1939

Spanish Civil War: Nationalists begin their final offensive of the war.

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic and included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists, supported by the Soviet Union. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of fascist Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists, supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and initially led by a military junta, until General Francisco Franco was appointed supreme leader on 1 October 1936 for what he called the Spanish State. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, religious struggle, or struggle between republican democracy and dictatorship, revolution and counterrevolution, or fascism and communism. The Nationalists won the war in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

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26/03/1934

The United Kingdom driving test is introduced.

The United Kingdom driving test is a test of competence that UK residents take in order to obtain a full Great Britain or Northern Ireland (car) driving licence or to add additional full entitlements to an existing one. Tests vary depending on the class of vehicle to be driven. In Great Britain it is administered by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and in Northern Ireland by the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA).

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26/03/1931

Swissair is founded as the national airline of Switzerland.

Swissair was the national airline of Switzerland between its founding in 1931 and bankruptcy in 2002.

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Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union is founded in Vietnam.

The Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, simply recognized as the Union, is the largest socio-political organisation of Vietnamese youth. The union is under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The organization was founded on March 26, 1931, and was led and trained by Ho Chi Minh.

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26/03/1922

The German Social Democratic Party is founded in Poland.

German Social Democratic Party was a political party in Poland, founded on March 26, 1922.

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26/03/1917

World War I: First Battle of Gaza: British troops are halted after 17,000 Turks block their advance.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

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26/03/1915

The Vancouver Millionaires win the 1915 Stanley Cup Finals, the first championship played between the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and the National Hockey Association.

The Vancouver Millionaires were a professional ice hockey team that competed in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and the Western Canada Hockey League between 1911 and 1926. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, they played in Denman Arena, the first artificial ice surface in Canada and the largest indoor ice rink in the world at the time it opened.

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26/03/1913

First Balkan War: Bulgarian forces capture Adrianople.

The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.

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26/03/1896

An explosion at the Brunner Mine near Greymouth, New Zealand, kills 65 coal miners in the country's worst industrial accident.

On 26 March 1896, an explosion deep in the Brunner Mine, New Zealand, killed all 65 miners below ground. The Brunner Mine disaster is the deadliest mining disaster in New Zealand's history.

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26/03/1885

The Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan under Louis Riel begin the North-West Rebellion against Canada.

The Métis are a mixed-ancestry Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They have a shared history and culture, deriving from specific mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, which became distinct through ethnogenesis by the mid-18th century, during the early years of the North American fur trade.

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26/03/1871

The elections of Commune council of the Paris Commune are held.

The Paris Commune was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended Paris, and working class radicalism grew among its soldiers. Following the establishment of the French Third Republic in September 1870 and the complete defeat of the French Army by the Germans by March 1871, soldiers of the National Guard seized control of the city on 18 March. The Communards killed two French Army generals and refused to accept the authority of the Third Republic; instead, the radicals set about establishing their own independent government.

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26/03/1839

The first Henley Royal Regatta is held.

Henley Royal Regatta is a rowing event held annually on the River Thames by the town of Henley-on-Thames, England. It was established on 26 March 1839. It differs from the three other regattas rowed over approximately the same course, Henley Women's Regatta, Henley Masters Regatta, and Henley Town and Visitors' Regatta, each of which is an entirely separate event.

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26/03/1830

The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.

The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, first published in 1830 by Joseph Smith as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi.

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26/03/1812

An earthquake devastates Caracas, Venezuela.

The 1812 Caracas earthquake took place in Venezuela on March 26 at 4:37 p.m. It measured 7.7 on the Richter scale. It caused extensive damage in Caracas, La Guaira, Barquisimeto, San Felipe, and Mérida. An estimated 15,000–20,000 people perished as a result, in addition to incalculable material damage.

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A political cartoon in the Boston-Gazette coins the term "gerrymander" to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.

Gerrymandering, defined in the contexts of representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries to advantage a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency.

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26/03/1700

William Dampier is the first European to circumnavigate New Britain, discovering it is an island (which he names Nova Britannia) rather than part of New Guinea.

William Dampier was an English explorer, pirate, privateer and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between the 16th-century explorer Sir Francis Drake and the 18th-century explorer James Cook; he "bridged those two eras" with a mix of piratical derring-do of the former and scientific inquiry of the latter.

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26/03/1697

Safavid government troops take control of Basra.

The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled by the Safavid dynasty from 1501 to 1736, albeit others place the end on the year 1722, when Isfahan fell to the Afghans. It is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires.

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26/03/1651

The silver-loaded Spanish ship San José, pushed south by strong winds, is wrecked on the coast of southern Chile and its surviving crew members are killed by indigenous Cuncos.

The real situado was the Spanish term for revenues that the viceroyalties of Peru, New Spain, New Granada, and Rio de la Plata sent to finance colonial frontier defenses against internal and external enemies.

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26/03/1640

The Royal Academy of Turku, the first university of Finland, is founded in the city of Turku by Queen Christina of Sweden at the proposal of Count Per Brahe.

The Royal Academy of Turku or the Royal Academy of Åbo was the first university in Finland, and the only Finnish university that was founded when the country still was a part of Sweden. It was founded in 1640. In 1809, after Finland became a grand duchy within the Russian Empire, it was renamed the Imperial Academy of Turku. In 1828, after the Great Fire of Turku, the institution was moved to Helsinki, in line with the relocation of the capital of the grand duchy. It was finally renamed the University of Helsinki when Finland declared independence in 1917.

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26/03/1636

Utrecht University is founded in the Netherlands.

Utrecht University is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established 26 March 1636, it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2024, it had an enrollment of 39,008 students, and employed 8,929 faculty members and staff. More than 600 PhD degrees were awarded and 8,314 scientific articles were published. The university's 2024 budget was €2.9 billion, consisting of €1.258 billion for the university and €1.643 billion for the University Medical Center Utrecht.

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26/03/1552

Guru Amar Das becomes the Third Sikh guru.

Guru Amar Das, sometimes spelled as Guru Amardas, was the third guru of Sikhism and became Sikh Guru on 26 March 1552 at age 73.

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26/03/1484

William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop's Fables.

William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England in 1476, and as a printer to be the first English retailer of printed books.

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26/03/1351

Combat of the Thirty: Thirty Breton knights call out and defeat thirty English knights.

The Combat of the Thirty, occurring on 26 March 1351, was an episode in the Breton War of Succession fought to determine who would rule the Duchy of Brittany. It was an arranged fight between selected combatants from both sides of the conflict, fought at a site midway between the Breton castles of Josselin and Ploërmel among 30 champions, knights, and squires on each side. The challenge was issued by Jean de Beaumanoir, a captain of Charles of Blois supported by King Philip VI of France, to Robert Bemborough, a captain of Jean de Montfort supported by Edward III of England.

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26/03/1344

The Siege of Algeciras, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder was used, comes to an end.

The siege of Algeciras (1342–1344) was undertaken during the Reconquest of Spain by the Castillian forces of Alfonso XI assisted by the fleets of the Crown of Aragon and the Republic of Genoa. The objective was to capture the city of Algeciras, called Al-Jazeera Al-Khadra by the Arabs who occupied it. The city was the capital and the main port of the European territory of the Marinid Empire.

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26/03/1244

The crown of Aragon and the crown of Castile agree in the Treaty of Almizra on the limits of their respective expansion into al-Andalus.

The Crown of Aragon was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona and ended as a consequence of the War of the Spanish Succession. At the height of its power in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of present-day eastern Iberian Peninsula, parts of what is now southern France, and a Mediterranean empire which included the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Southern Italy, and parts of Greece.

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26/03/1169

Saladin becomes the emir of Egypt.

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, was a Kurdish commander and political leader. He was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.

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26/03/1027

Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor.

Pope John XIX, born Roman of Tusculum, was the Bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1024 to his death. He belonged to the family of the powerful Counts of Tusculum, succeeding his brother, Benedict VIII. Papal relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople soured during John XIX's pontificate. He was a supporter of Emperor Conrad II and patron of the musician Guido of Arezzo.

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26/03/1021

The death of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, kept secret for six weeks, is announced, along with the succession of his son, al-Zahir li-i'zaz Din Allah.

The Fatimid Caliphate, also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate that existed from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, it ranged from the western Mediterranean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids traced their ancestry to the Islamic prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali, the first Shi'a imam. The Fatimids were acknowledged as the rightful imams by different Isma'ili communities as well as by denominations in many other Muslim lands and adjacent regions. Starting in Ifriqiya during the Abbasid Caliphate, the Fatimids overthrew the Aghlabids and extended their rule across the Mediterranean coast and ultimately made Egypt the center of the caliphate. At its height, the caliphate included—in addition to Egypt—varying areas of the Maghreb, Sicily, the Levant, and the Hejaz.

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26/03/0752

Election of Pope Stephen II following the death of Pope Zachary.

Pope Stephen II was the bishop of Rome from 752 until his death in 757. Stephen II marks the historical delineation between the Byzantine Papacy and the Frankish Papacy. During Stephen's pontificate, Rome was facing invasion by the Lombards when Stephen II went to Paris to seek assistance from Pepin the Short. Pepin defeated the Lombards and made a gift of land to the pope, eventually leading to the establishment of the Papal States.

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26/03/0624

First Eid al-Fitr celebration.

Eid al-Fitr is the first of the two main festivals in Islam, the other being Eid al-Adha. The holiday falls on the first day of Shawwal, the tenth month of the Islamic calendar. One of the most important Islamic celebrations, Eid al-Fitr is celebrated by Muslims worldwide as it marks the end of the month-long, dawn-to-dusk fasting (sawm) during Ramadan. The holiday is known under various other names in different languages and countries around the world.

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26/03/0590

Emperor Maurice proclaims his son Theodosius as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

Maurice was Eastern Roman emperor from 582 to 602 and the last member of the Justinian dynasty. A successful general, Maurice was chosen as heir and son-in-law by his predecessor Tiberius II.

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