Today in History.....July 26

On this day in …

1775, Benjamin Franklin became Postmaster-General

1908, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is born when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group of newly hired federal investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice. One year later, the Office of the Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau of Investigation, and in 1935 it became the Federal Bureau of Investigation


1941, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China

1945, in the 11th hour of World War II, Winston Churchill is forced to resign as British prime minister following his party's electoral defeat by the Labour Party. It was the first general election held in Britain in more than a decade. The same day, Clement Attlee, the Labour leader, was sworn in as the new British leader

1947, President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act, which becomes one of the most important pieces of Cold War legislation. The act established much of the bureaucratic framework for foreign policymaking for the next 40-plus years of the Cold War

1952, King Farouk I of Egypt abdicated in the wake of a coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser
1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal


1971, Apollo 15 was launched from Cape Kennedy, Fla.

1986, Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon, practitioners of that "religion of peace", released the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American hostage held for nearly 19 months

2005, America's manned space program roared back to life with the launch of Discovery, 2 1/2 years after the Columbia disaster. ALSO: Six nations resumed nuclear disarmament talks that North Korea had boycotted for 13 months, but little progress was made.