What happened on August 26 ?

1278 - King Otakar II of Bohemia

1346 - Killed in the Battle of Crécy: Charles II of Alençon (b. 1297)

Louis I of Flanders (b. 1304)

John I, Count of Luxemburg (b. 1296)

Rudolph, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1320)

1349 - Thomas Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury

1551 - Margareta Leijonhufvud, queen of Gustav I of Sweden (b. 1516)

1595 - Antonio, Prior of Crato, claimant to the throne of Portugal (b. 1531)

1666 - Frans Hals, Dutch painter

1714 - Edward Fowler, English Bishop of Gloucester (b. 1632)

1723 - Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch scientist (b. 1632)

1785 - George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British soldier and politician (b. 1716)

1850 - Louis-Philippe of France (b. 1773)

1865 - Johann Franz Encke, German astronomer (b. 1791)

1915 - John Bunny American comedian (b. 1863)

1930 - Lon Chaney, Sr., American actor (b. 1883)

1944 - Adam von Trott zu Solz, German anti-Nazi diplomat (executed)

1945 - Franz Werfel, Austrian writer (b. 1890)

1958 - Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer (b. 1872)

1968 - Kay Francis, American actress (b. 1899)

1974 - Charles Lindbergh, American aviator (b. 1902)

1976 - Lotte Lehmann, German soprano (b. 1888)

1978 - Charles Boyer, French actor (b. 1899)

1978 - José Manuel Moreno, Argentine footballer (b. 1916)

1979 - Mika Waltari, Finnish author (b. 1908)

1980 - Rosa Albach-Retty, German actress (b. 1874)

1980 - Tex Avery, American cartoonist (b. 1908)

1981 - Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (b. 1884)

1986 - Ted Knight, American actor (b. 1923)

1987 - Georg Wittig, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897)

1988 - Carlos Paião, Portuguese singer (b. 1957)

1989 - Irving Stone, American author (b. 1903)

1990 - Minoru Honda, Japanese astronomer (b. 1913)

1998 - Frederick Reines, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)

2003 - Jim Wacker, American football coach (b. 1937)

2004 - Laura Branigan, American singer (b. 1957)

2005 - Denis D'Amour, Canadian guitarist (Voivod) (b. 1960)

2005 - Robert Denning, American interior designer (b. 1927)