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Today in History, August 26th

On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was certified, guaranteeing women the vote. Plus Crécy, Manzikert and baseball's TV debut.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published August 26, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

August 26 is best known for 1920, when the 19th Amendment was certified and became part of the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. The date also marks the Battle of Crécy in 1346 and the first televised Major League Baseball game in 1939.

The big story: The 19th Amendment is certified (1920)

The decisive vote had already happened. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify, reaching the three-fourths mark the Constitution requires. What remained was paperwork. Tennessee’s certified record came to Washington by train and arrived in the early hours of August 26. At 8 a.m., Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the proclamation at his home. No suffrage leaders were in the room, and no cameras recorded it. That quiet signature closed a fight of more than 70 years, reaching back to the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Suffragists had won state by state, sued, picketed, held silent vigils and gone on hunger strikes. Congress finally sent the amendment to the states on June 4, 1919. The victory had limits. Poll taxes, local laws and other barriers kept many African American and other minority women from voting for decades.

More events on August 26

Year	What happened
1071	Seljuq Turks under Alp-Arslan crushed a Byzantine army at Manzikert and captured Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes, opening most of Anatolia to Seljuq conquest.
1346	Edward III’s English army beat Philip VI’s French at Crécy. Fast-shooting English longbowmen cut down wave after wave of mounted knights.
1629	Puritan stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company signed the Cambridge Agreement (Old Style), pledging to move to New England if the colony’s government moved with them.
1914	Germany’s 8th Army attacked Russia’s 2nd Army near Tannenberg in East Prussia. Within days the Russian force was destroyed.
1936	Britain and Egypt signed the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in London, ending British occupation but keeping British troops in the Suez Canal Zone.
1939	The first televised Major League Baseball game aired on station W2XBS, with Red Barber calling the Reds and Dodgers at Ebbets Field.
1957	The Soviet Union announced it had tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, feeding U.S. fears of a “missile gap.”
2016	San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat during the national anthem at a preseason game. Days later he began kneeling instead.

Born on August 26

1743: Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, French chemist who led the chemical revolution, born in Paris.
1914: Julio Cortázar, Argentine writer of the novel Hopscotch, born in Brussels, Belgium.
1918: Katherine Johnson, NASA mathematician who checked John Glenn’s orbital equations by hand, born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.