Timeline August 1926

Events in August 1926 5

• 1895 – 1926 Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926) Died 23 August 1926, aged 31 Rudolph Valentino, the Italian-American film star and the leading male sex symbol of the silent era, died suddenly in New York of peritonitis following a ruptured ulcer. His death triggered mass public grief, with crowds rioting outside the funeral home and reports of fans attempting suicide.
• 1926 US Championships 1926 Men: René Lacoste · Women: Molla Mallory
• 1926 Gertrude Ederle swims the English Channel First woman to swim the Channel On 6 August 1926, American swimmer Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, completing the crossing from France to England in 14 hours and 39 minutes. Her time beat the existing men's record by nearly two hours.
• 1926 – 2016 Fidel Castro (1926-2016) Died 25 November 2016, aged 90 Castro led Cuba as Prime Minister and later President for nearly five decades after leading the 1959 revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista. He established a one-party communist state that survived a U.S. trade embargo and decades of Cold War hostility. He formally transferred power to his brother Raul in 2008 but remained a symbolic figure until his death.
• 1926 – 2022 Jiang Zemin (1926-2022) Died 30 November 2022, aged 96 Chinese politician who led the country from 1989 to 2002, steering it through the aftermath of Tiananmen and into the WTO.