March 26

1169 – Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known in the west as ‘Saladin’, becomes the emir of Egypt.

1344 – The 21 month long siege of Algeciras during the Reconquista, by the Castilian forces of Alfonso XI, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder is used, comes to a successful end.

1484 – William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop’s Fables.

1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe an oddly shaped U.S. Congressional District that was signed into law by then governor, later vice-president, Elbridge Gerry; comparing it to the shape of a mythological salamander. The political tactic is used to form districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.

1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.

1945 – The Battle of Iwo Jima ends as the island is officially secured by American forces.

1954 – The ‘Romeo’ shot of Operation Castle, the first U.S. deployable thermonuclear weapon, the TX-17 bomb, is detonated at Bikini Atoll with an explosive power of 11 megatons of TNT, vastly more powerful than planned – 4 megatons – due to the same unforeseen reaction of components as the ‘Bravo’ detonation a few weeks earlier.

1975 – The international disarmament Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction comes into force.

1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C.

1982 –  The groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C.

1997 – Deputies of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department discover the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate group who committed suicide,  in Rancho Santa Fe, California due to the passage of comet Hale-Bopp.