On This Day for May 26 - Martin Luther declared a heretic by the Edict of Worms, Sally Ride is featured, and more

Created: 2020-05-26 10:03 Updated: 2020-05-26 10:03 Notebook: On this Day in History

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May 26

FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

Sally Ride

FEATURED EVENT

1521

Martin Luther declared a heretic by the Edict of Worms

MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2008: American director, producer, and actor Sydney Pollack—who helmed a number of popular films, including The Way We Were (1973), Tootsie (1982), and Out of Africa (1985)—died in Pacific Palisades, California. [Sort fact from fiction in our film school quiz.]

1971: American screenwriter, actor, and producer Matt Stone—who was best known as the cocreator, with Trey Parker , of the subversive animated television series South Park—was born.

1926: Jazz musician Miles Davis, a trumpeter who was one of the major influences on jazz from the late 1940s, was born in Alton, Illinois. [Take our music quiz.]

1897: Irish writer Bram Stoker published the Gothic horror classic Dracula, which became the basis for an entire genre of literature and films about vampires. [ Was Dracula a real person?]

1895: American photographer Dorothea Lange , whose portraits of displaced farmers during the Great Depression greatly influenced later documentary and journalistic photography, was born. [How many famous photographers can you name?]

1886: Al Jolson , a popular American singer and blackface comedian of the musical stage and motion pictures, was born Asa Yoelson in Srednike, Russia (now Seredžius, Lithuania).

SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY

1907

John Wayne
American actor

1926

Miles Davis
American musician

1949

Jeremy Corbyn
British politician

1975

Lauryn Hill
American singer

1867

Mary of Teck
queen of Great Britain