1926

## Events

- January 1 – Ireland's first regular radio service, 2RN (later _Radio Éireann_), begins broadcasting.
- January 8 – Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud becomes the King of Hejaz
- January 12 – Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll premiere their radio program _Sam 'n' Henry_, in which the two white performers portrayed two black characters from Harlem looking for extra money during the Depression. It was a precursor to Gosden and Correll's more popular later program, _Amos 'n' Andy_.
- January 16 – BBC radio play about worker's revolution causes a panic in London
- January 26 – John Logie Baird demonstrates a mechanical television system.
- January 31 – British and Belgian troops leave Cologne
- February 9 – Flooding on London suburbs
- March 6 – The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is destroyed by fire
- March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts
- April 7 – Failed assassination attempt against Mussolini
- April 12 – By a vote of 45 to 41, the United States Senate unseats Iowa Senator Smith W. Brookhart and seats Daniel F. Steck, after Brookhart had already served for over one year.
- April 16 – Train crash in San Jose, Costa Rica – 178 dead
- April 21 – Princess Elizabeth born in London
- April 25 – Reza Khan is crowned Shah of Iran under the name "Pahlevi."

## Nobel Prizes

- Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger, Danish doctor, won the 1926 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, (b. 1867) (d. 1928)

### January

- January 1 - Claudio Villa, Italian singer (d. 1987)
- January 3 – George Martin, "5th Beatle": producer of The Beatles' records, later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (d. 2016)
- January 11 – Ahmad Fuad Mohieddin, Prime Minister of Egypt (d. 1984)
- January 20 – Patricia Neal, American stage and film actress (d. 2010)
- January 21 – Steve Reeves, American actor and bodybuilder (d. 2000)
- January 27 - Ingrid Thulin, Swedish actress (d. 2004)
- January 29 – Franco Cerri, Italian jazz guitarist
- January 29 – Abdus Salam, Pakistani Nobel Prize in Physics winner (d. 1996)

### February

- February 2 – Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 20th President of France (d. 2020)
- February 7 - Konstantin Feoktistov, Russian cosmonaut (d. 2009)
- February 9 - Garret FitzGerald, Irish Taoiseach (d. 2011)
- February 11 – Paul Bocuse, French chef (d. 2018)
- February 11 – Leslie Nielsen, Canadian actor and comedian (d. 2010)
- February 16 - Margot Frank, sister of Anne Frank (d. 1945)
- February 16 – John Schlesinger, British movie director (d. 2003)
- February 20 - Richard Matheson, American author (d. 2013)

### March

- March 2 – Murray Rothbard, American economist (d. 1995)
- March 6 – Andrzej Wajda, Polish film director (d. 2016)
- March 10 - Oscar Quitak, British actor
- March 16 – Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian (d. 2017)
- March 17 – Siegfried Lenz, German author (d. 2014)
- March 24 – Dario Fo, Italian writer (d. 2016)
- March 27 – Clarence Henry, American boxer
- March 30 – Ingvar Kamprad, Swedish businessman (d. 2018)

### April

- April 3 – Timothy Bateson, English actor (d. 2009)
- April 7 – James Garner, American actor (d. 2014)
- April 9 – Hugh Hefner, American publisher, founder of _Playboy_ magazine (d. 2017)
- April 21 – Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms.
- April 28 – Harper Lee, American writer (d. 2016)
- April 30 – Cloris Leachman, American actress (d. 2021)

### May

- May 8 – David Attenborough, British documentary movie maker, broadcaster and naturalist
- May 8 – Don Rickles, American stand-up comedian (d. 2017)
- May 25 – Claude Akins, American actor (d. 1994)
- May 26 – Miles Davis, American jazz trumpeter (d. 1991)
- May 29 – Abdoulaye Wade, 3rd President of Senegal

### June

- June 1 – Marilyn Monroe, American actress, singer and model (d. 1962)
- June 3 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet and writer (d. 1997)
- June 16 – Efraín Ríos Montt, President of Guatemala (d. 2018)
- June 28 – Mel Brooks, American actor, screenwriter, movie director and movie producer

### July

- July 4 – Alfredo Di Stéfano, Argentine-Spanish association football player (d. 2014)
- July 7 – Nuon Chea, Cambodian politician, Acting Prime Minister of Cambodia (d. 2019)
- July 10 – Fred Gwynne, American actor (d. 1993)
- July 12 – Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali, spouse of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
- July 15 – Leopoldo Galtieri, 44th President of Argentina (d. 2003)

### August

- August 6 - Janet Asimov, American science fiction writer and psychoanalyst (d. 2019)
- August 13 – Fidel Castro, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (d. 2016)
- August 15 – Konstantinos Stephanopoulos, President of Greece (d. 2016)
- August 17 – Jiang Zemin, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (d. 2022)

### September

- September 6 – Prince Claus of the Netherlands, husband of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (d. 2002)
- September 19 – Masatoshi Koshiba, Japanese physicist and Nobel Prize winner (d. 2020)
- September 26 – Julie London, American actress and singer (d. 2000)

### October

- October 11 – Thích Nhất Hạnh, Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk (d. 2022)
- October 15 - Michel Foucault, French philosopher (d. 1984)
- October 17 – Julie Adams, American actress (d. 2019)
- October 18 – Chuck Berry, American singer and songwriter (d. 2017)
- October 29 – Necmettin Erbakan, 23rd Prime Minister of Turkey (d. 2011)
- October 25 - Galina Vishnevskaya, Russian opera singer (d. 2012)
- October 26 – Robert Baker, American boxer (d. 2002)

### November

- November 29 – Beji Caid Essebsi, 5th President and 18th Prime Minister of Tunisia (d. 2019)
- November 30 - Andrew W. Schally, Polish Nobel Prize in Medicine winner
- November 30 - Richard Crenna, American actor (d. 2003)

### December

- December 9 - Raif Dizdarević, President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia

## Deaths

- January 3 – Emmet D. Boyle, American Governor of Nevada (b. 1879)
- January 4 – Margherita of Savoy, Queen of the Kingdom of Italy (b. 1851)
- February 15 – Piero Gobetti, Italian journalist (b. 1901)
- June 9 – Sanford Dole, American politician and businessman (b. 1844)
- August 23 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (b. 1895)
- November 3 – Annie Oakley, American sharpshooter (b. 1860)
- December 6 – Claude Monet, French painter (b. 1840)
- December 29 - Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian writer (b. 1875)
- Iraj Mirza, Iranian poet (b. 1874)

## Movies

- _The Scarlet Letter_

nv:1901 – 1950