| 1517 | | The famous Flemish composer Heinrich Issac dies. |
| 1799 | | Napoleon Bonaparte captures Jaffa, Palestine. |
| 1804 | | Congress orders the removal of Indians east of the Mississippi River to Louisiana. |
| 1804 | | The territory of New Orleans is organized in the Louisiana Purchase. |
| 1827 | | German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven dies in Vienna. He had been deaf for the later part of his life, but said on his death bed "I shall hear in heaven." |
| 1832 | | Famed western artist George Catlin begins his voyage up the Missouri River aboard the American Fur Company steamship Yellowstone. |
| 1885 | | Eastman Film Co. manufactures the first commercial motion picture film. |
| 1913 | | The Balkan allies take Adrianople. |
| 1918 | | On the Western Front, the Germans take the French towns Noyon, Roye and Lihons. |
| 1938 | | Herman Goering warns all Jews to leave Austria. |
| 1942 | | The Germans begin sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland. |
| 1950 | | Senator Joe McCarthy names Owen Lattimore, an ex-State Department adviser, as a Soviet spy. |
| 1951 | | The United States Air Force flag design is approved. |
| 1953 | | Eisenhower offers increased aid to the French fighting in Indochina. |
| 1953 | | Dr. Jonas Salk announces a new vaccine against polio. |
| 1954 | | The United States sets off an H-bomb blast in the Marshall Islands, the second in four weeks. |
| 1961 | | John F. Kennedy meets with British Premier Macmillan in Washington to discuss increased Communist involvement in Laos. |
| 1969 | | The Soviet weather Satellite Meteor 1 is launched. |
| 1969 | | Writer John Kennedy Toole commits suicide at the age of 32. His mother helps get his first and only novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, published. It goes on to win the 1981 Pulitzer Prize. |
| 1979 | | The Camp David treaty is signed between Israel and Egypt. |
| 1982 | | Ground is broken in Washington D.C. for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. |
| 1989 | | The first free elections take place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin is elected. |
| 1992 | | An Indianapolis court finds heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson guilty of rape. |
Born on March 26 |
| 1819 | | Louise Otto, German author. |
| 1850 | | Edward Bellamy, writer (Looking Backward). |
| 1859 | | A.E. Houseman, poet (A Shropshire Lad). |
| 1874 | | Robert Frost, poet, multiple Pulitzer Prize-winner. |
| 1880 | | Duncan Hines, U.S. restaurant guide author |
| 1904 | | Joseph Campbell, folklorist and writer. |
| 1911 | | Tennessee Williams, American dramatist (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Name Desire). |
| 1914 | | William Westmoreland, U.S. army general during the Vietnam War. |
| 1923 | | Bob Elliot, radio comedian, one half of Bob and Ray. |
| 1930 | | Gregory Corso, beat poet, discovered literature in prison. |
| 1930 | | Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice. |
| 1933 | | Vine Deloria, Jr., writer, activist. |
| 1942 | | Erica Jong, poet, novelist (Fear of Flying, How to Save Your Own Life). |
