📅 Today in HistoryJuly 26
First Fitna: In the Battle of Siffin, troops led by Ali ibn Abu Talib clash with those led by Muawiyah I.
Battle of Pliska: Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I is killed and his heir Staurakios is seriously wounded.
Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims at the Battle of Valdejunquera.
Erfurt latrine disaster: At a Hoftag, a meeting with local notables, organized by Henry VI, the building collapses and many of the nobles in attendance drown in the sewage pits below.
Krishnadevaraya ascends to the throne as Emperor of Vijayanagara, marking the beginning of the regeneration of the Vijayanagara Empire.
Francis Drake, the English explorer, discovers a "fair and good" bay on the coast of the Pacific Northwest (probably Oregon or Washington).
Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Act of Abjuration): The northern Low Countries declare their independence from the Spanish king, Philip II.
During the Bavarian Rummel the rural population of Tyrol drove the Bavarian Prince-Elector Maximilian II Emanuel out of North Tyrol with a victory at the Pontlatzer Bridge and thus prevented the Bavarian Army, which was allied with France, from marching as planned on Vienna during the War of the Spanish Succession.