Today in History, 1/26

1340: Edward III of England is declared King of France. Well, he declared himself King of France, the French actually had other ideas. But at this time, most of being king was having the stones to declare yourself king and having the army to back it up.
1564: The Council of Trent issues its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing the distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
1788: Arthur Phillip establishes Sydney, Australia.
1837: Michigan becomes the 26th state.
1861: Louisiana secedes from the Union.
1880: General Douglas MacArthur is born.1893: Abner Doubleday, creator of baseball, dies.
1905: Charles Lane is born. He played Mr. Potter's "little old rent collector" in It's A Wonderful Life but he was in a million other things.
1905: Maria Von Trapp is born.1907: The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III is introduced to the British military and remains the oldest military rifle still in official use.
1911: Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful seaplane.
1918: Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanian dictator is born. He would come to a sorry end.
1918: Philip Jose Farmer is born. He wrote the epic Riverworld series, which I always felt was overrated.
1925: Paul Newman is born.

A little somethin' for the ladies!

1928: Roger Vadim is born. He directed Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy starring his wife Jane Fonda.

"Hey, Jane, does my hand taste funny to you?"

1929: Jules Feiffer, cartoonist, is born.
1934: The German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact is signed. It didn't take.
1935: Bob Uecker is born.
1946: Gene Siskel is born.
1955: Eddie Van Halen is born. I had no idea he was Dutch. I loved this video as a kid, but now that I watch it, it seems incredibly stupid. Yes, teach your pre-teen boys to objectify women! And that lowering the sunglasses-to-get-a-better-look-at-a-pretty-woman trick? They never think that's cool.

1958: Ellen DeGeneres is born.
1962: Lucky Luciano dies.
1973: Edward G. Robinson dies. His last role was in Soylent Green.
1979: Nelson Rockefeller dies, under mysterious circumstances. As in, nude in a cheap motel with a wiener pump and a woman young enough to be his granddaughter. He's also known for giving the finger to a bunch of hecklers at the 1976 Republican National Convention.1979: The greatest TV show in the history of the world, The Dukes of Hazzard premieres.

1980: Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations.
1988: The Phantom of the Opera premieres on Broadway.
1992: Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia is going to stop targeting the US with nuclear weapons.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up