1926

Events
January 1 - Ireland's first regular radio service, 2RN (later Radio Eireann), 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)
Births
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 - Valery 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.