The following events occurred in August 1926:
August 1, 1926 (Sunday)
An assassination attempt against Spanish dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera failed in Barcelona when a thrown dagger narrowly missed his head as he rode in a car. A 34-year-old Catalan anarchist was arrested. In Italy's Northern League (Lega Nord) of soccer football, Juventus FC (17–3–2) of Group B defeated Bologna FC 1909 (17–4–1) of Group A, 2 goals to 1, after the teams had played to a 2–2 draw and a 0–0 draw in their two-game series. Juventus then played against SS Alba Roma, championship of the Southern League (Lega Sud) and overwhelmed them by a margin of 17 goals. Born: Hannah Hauxwell, British farmer and television personality; in Baldersdale, North Riding of Yorkshire (d. 2018) Died: Israel Zangwill, 62, British Zionist, novelist and playwright Fanindra Bose, 38, India-born Scottish sculptor, died of a heart attack while fishing and drowned.
August 2, 1926 (Monday) Amendments to the 1921 constitution of Poland took effect to give President Józef Piłsudski increased powers and to minimize those of the nation's bicameral parliament. The provisions of the August Novelization (Nowela sierpniowa) provided that the president could dismiss the Sejm and the Senat at any time, though the Sejm could not vote for its own dissolution, and that President Pilsudski's decrees (rozporzadzenia), including a state budget, would have the effect of a statute unless rejected by the parliament. The Turkish freighter S.S. Bozkourt was torn apart when it was struck by the French passenger ship S.S. Lotus, and eight passengers drowned.The Case of The S.S. Lotus After the Lotus rescued the 10 survivors and transported them to Istanbul, the captain, Mr. Demons, was arrested by Turkish authorities and charged with liability for the deaths and the damage caused by the accident, giving rise to the "Lotus case", when the World Court of the League of Nations made a determination of whether Turkey or France had jurisdiction over a crime committed in international waters, with a ruling in 1927 that would lead to the Convention of the High Seas in 1958. Italy enacted new austerity measures to fight poverty and redress the country's trade deficit. Pastry containing pure white flour was prohibited. Born: Sy Mah, Canadian long-distance runner who achieved the world record of most marathons, with 524 from 1967 to 1988 ; in Bashaw, Alberta (died from leukemia, 1988) Igor Spassky, Soviet Russian engineer who oversaw the design of almost 200 submarines for the Soviet Navy and the Russian Navy; in Bogorodsk (d. 2024)"Конструктор атомных подлодок Игорь Спасский умер на 99-м году жизни" ("Nuclear submarine designer Igor Spassky has died at the age of 98"), by Liza Gubina, Telekanal Zvezda, September 9, 2024 ("He turned 98 on August 2.") Annie Geeraerts, Belgian television actress known for portraying "Bomma" in the soap opera Familie since its debut in 1991; in Borgerhout, Flanders (alive in 2026) Hugh Maguire, Irish violinist and leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra; in Dublin (d. 2013) Uday Bhanu Hans, Indian Hindi language poet and poet laureate of the state of Haryana; in Daira Din Panah, Punjab Province, British India (now in Pakistan) (d. 2019)
August 3, 1926 (Tuesday) The Cristero War, an uprising by the LNDLR (Liga Nacional Defensora de la Libertad Religiosa, nicknamed Los Cristeros), began as a peasant uprising against the Calles government. Some 400 armed Catholics barricaded themselves in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico and exchanged gunfire with federal troops until they ran out of ammunition and surrendered. According to U.S. consular sources, 18 people were killed and 40 wounded. Italy banned any parades, ceremonies and public demonstrations that were not authorized as "effectively useful". The Mount Batur volcano on the island of Bali in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) erupted for the first time since 1917, and destroyed the village of Karang Anyar, but the residents were able to evacuate safely. The Pura Ulun temple, completed earlier in the year, was spared, although the lava stopped at the temple gates. London's first traffic lights came into operation at 11:25 in the morning at Piccadilly Circus. The eight signalling lights supplemented the existing group of traffic policemen in guiding drivers. According to London's Evening Express, "hundreds of people watched the red and green flickers in Piccadilly which told a dozen policemen when to raise and drop their arms." The grand jury in the Aimee Semple McPherson case reconvened to consider further testimony and evidence. Born: Tony Bennett, American singer known for his signature song I Left My Heart in San Francisco, winner of 20 Grammy Awards; as Anthony Benedetto in Astoria, Queens, New York (d. 2023) Shun-ichi Iwasaki, Japanese engineer known for his pioneering work on perpendicular magnetic recording, which has been integral to the development of the modern hard disk drive; in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture (d. 2025) Anthony Sampson, British novelist known for Anatomy of Britain and its five sequels; in Billingham, County Durham (d. 2004) George Ford, American book illustrator; in Brooklyn, New York City (alive in 2026) Mary E. Rice, American inverterbrate biologist; in Washington, D.C. (d. 2021) Died: Vasil Kovachev, 60, Bulgarian zoologist and botanist Ernest Willows, 40, Welsh aviator, airship builder and pilot, was killed in an accident along with four other people while taking the group aloft in a balloon. The netting holding the basket to the rest of the balloon came loose and Willows and his passengers fell to their deaths.
August 4, 1926 (Wednesday) Sultan bin Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, ruler of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (now part of the United Arab Emirates), was killed by his half-brother, Saqr bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in a coup d'état. Sultan bin Zayed and Saqr bin Zayed had teamed up in 1922 to kill their own brother, the Emir Hamdan bin Zeyed. Umberto Nobile was feted in Rome for his part in the recent North Pole expedition, as 20,000 filled the square in front of the Palazzo Chigi. Sharing the balcony with Nobile and his team Mussolini declared, "In vain did others try to steal the glory of Major General Nobile and to change the proportion of credit for events without parallel in human history. But I want to say in a voice of thunder that, Italy, it was you who were responsible for the glory, and it was you who pushed and helped him to his objective."
August 5, 1926 (Thursday)
The four-minute film Introduction of Vitaphone Sound Pictures introduced Warner Brothers' new sound-on-film process, Vitaphone, at the Warner Theatre in New York City."Vitaphone Stirs as Talking Movie; New Device Synchronizing Sound With Action Impresses With Its Realistic Effects— Noted Musicians Heard; Provides Orchestral Accompaniment to Photoplay 'Don Juan,' With John Barrymore", by Mordaunth Hall, The New York Times, August 7, 1926 ("A marvelous device known as the vitaphone, which synchronizes sound with motion pictures, stirred a distinguished audience in Warners' Theatre to unusual enthusiasm at its initial presentation last Thursday evening.") In the short feature, Will H. Hays, President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, whose voice was synchronized to the moving picture, told the audience "Now, neither the artist nor his art will ever wholly die." Afterward, Don Juan, became the first full-length movie to include the Vitaphone process. Starring John Barrymore, Don Juan had no dialogue, it did have synchronized sound effects and a musical soundtrack. Less than three months before his death, American magician and escape artist Harry Houdini performed one of his most spectacular stunts, laying down in a coffin which was then sealed, lowered into a swimming pool at the Hotel Shelton in New York City, and not being brought out until more than 90 minutes later. Unable to leave the container without being noticed by the spectators, and with no visible source of outside oxygen, Houdini used controlled breathing to remain conscious for "exactly 1 hour, 31 minutes and 31 seconds" from 12:09 to 1:40 in the afternoon. Houdini's stunt had been preceded by a similar stunt where an Egyptian Hindu magician, Rahman Bey, had stayed in a casket for one hour.Houdini Wins Test in a Sealed Casket; Stays Under Water in Airtight Case an Hour and a Half With No Ill Effects", The New York Times, August 6, 1926, p.32 France and Germany signed a trade accord covering the full range of trade between the two nations."France and Reich Sign Trade Accord; Treaty Has Wide Range, Runs Six Months and Is Renewable Semi-Annually", The New York Times, August 6, 1926, p.12 English pilot Alan Cobham arrived in Port Darwin, Australia to complete the first half of his round-trip flight between England and Australia. Born: Betsy Jolas, French-born American opera and orchestral composer; in Paris (alive in 2026)Jeremy Thurlow, "Jolas, Betsy", Grove Music Online, accessed 24 July 2017. Doug McClelland, President of the Australian Senate from 1983 to 1987, and Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, 1987 to 1991; in Wentworthville, New South Wales (alive in 2026)
August 6, 1926 (Friday)
Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel, and the sixth person overall. Covering the distance from Cap Gris-Nez in France to Kingsdown in England in 14 hours and 39 minutes, Ederle broke the record for any person, woman or man, besting the record of 16 hours, 33 minutes that had been set by Enrique Tirabocchi on August 12, 1923. The appareil Fernez-Le Prieur, the first self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, was given its inaugural public demonstration by inventors Maurice Fernez and Yves Le Prieur. The system used an air tank to be worn on the swimmer's back, a hose that led to a mouthpiece with a one-way valve (created by Fernez) and a pressure regulator (designed by Le Prieur) that could be controlled by the swimmer. The event took place at the Piscine des Tourelles, the swimming pool used at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.Yves Le Prieur and Paul Gaston, Premier de Plongée (Paris: France-Empire, 1956) The Japanese broadcasting network NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyoka) was created by the merger of the radio stations of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. The shipping company United American Lines, founded by W. Averell Harriman and operating with a fleet of six ships, was acquired by Germany's Hamburg America Line Born: Norman Wexler, American screenwriter; in New Bedford, Massachusetts (d. 1999) J. A. Baker, English author known for The Peregrine (1967); in Chelmsford, Essex (d. 1987) Francesco Somaini, Italian sculptor; in Lomazzo (d. 2005) Died: Paolina Schiff, 85, German-born Italian women's rights pioneer.
August 7, 1926 (Saturday) Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles ruled out foreign mediation in the battle between the government and the Catholic church."Calles Rules Out Foreign Mediation in Church Conflict", The New York Times, August 6, 1926, p.1 The governments of Spain, led by the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera, and Italy, led by dictator Benito Mussolini, signed a Treaty of Friendship. Miguel Abadía Méndez was inaugurated to a four-year term as President of Colombia, succeeding fellow Conservative Pedro Nel Ospina Vázquez after having been elected unopposed on February 14 during the period of the "Conservative Hegemony". The first British Grand Prix was held at the Brooklands motor racing circuit in England, near Weybridge, Surrey, and was won by Louis Wagner of France, who had taken over from Robert Sénéchal in driving the 110 laps in Senechal's Delage 15-S-8 car. Malcolm Campbell of Britain, who had passed France's André Dubonnet on lap 102 in his Bugatti 39A, finished in second place.