Friday 26th of February 1802

Romantic poet and writer Victor Marie Hugo is born in 140 Grande Rue, Besançon, Franche-Comté, France.

Thursday 26th of February 1829

Clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss known for Levi Strauss & Co. blue jeans is born as Löb Strauß in Marktstraße 33, Buttenheim, Bayern, Germany.

Thursday 26th of February 1846

Bison hunter and showman William Frederick Cody aka Buffalo Bill is born in Napsinekee Hollow, Le Claire, Iowa, United States.

Thursday 26th of February 1852

Advocate of dietary reform John Harvey Kellogg is born in Tyrone, Michigan, United States.

Thursday 26th of February 1852

Serial poisoner Hélène Jégado is executed by the Guillotine at the age of 49 in Champ-de-Mars, Rennes, Bretagne, France.

Jégado is believed to have murdered as many as 36 people with arsenic over a period of 18 years.

Wednesday 26th of February 1908

Animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director Tex Frederick Bean Avery is born in Taylor, Texas, United States.

Friday 26th of February 1909

Murderer Cyrus Y. Timmons is executed by hanging at the age of 38 in Oregon State Penitentiary, Salem, Oregon, United States.

Thursday 26th of February 1914

Murderer George Ball aka George Sumner aka The Sack Murderer is executed by hanging at the age of 22 in Walton Prison, Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom.

He killed his employer Christina Catherine Bradfield in her shop at 86 Old Hall Street in Liverpool on 10 December 1913.

Sunday 26th of February 1928

Singer-songwriter and musician Fats Antoine Domino is born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

Friday 26th of February 1932

Singer-songwriter Johnny R. Cash aka The Man in Black is born in Kingsland, Arkansas, United States.

Friday 26th of February 1943

The first transport of Gypsies arrives in KZ Buchenwald, Weimar, Thüringen, Germany.

Friday 26th of February 1943

SS-Obergruppenführer and first commander of Dachau-KZ Theodor Eicke dies as his Fieseler Fi 156 Storch aircraft is shot down by Soviet troops at the age of 51 in Artelnoje, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine.

Friday 26th of February 1943

Murderer William E. Wallace is executed by the gas chamber at the age of 54 in Oregon State Penitentiary, Salem, Oregon, United States.

Wallace was the oldest man executed in the Oregon State Penitentiary Gas Chamber.

Wednesday 26th of February 1958

Writer Michel Houellebecq is born as Michel Thomas in Saint-Pierre, La Réunion, France.

Thursday 26th of February 1959

Peter Paul Rubens’ 'Der Höllensturz der Verdammten' is attacked with acid by 53-year-old Art vandal Walter Menzl in Alte Pinakothek, München, Bayern, Germany.

Wednesday 26th of February 1964

39-year-old Wiener Aktionist Otto Muehl performs 'Materialaktion nr. 3 / Klarsichtpackung / Versumpfung in Einer Truhe – Panierung Eines Weiblichen Gesäßes – Wälzen im Schlamm' in Obere Augartenstraße 14a, Wien, Wien, Austria.

Friday 26th of February 1971

Actor and singer Fernandel dies of lung cancer at the age of 68 in Avenue Foch, Paris, XVIe, Île-de-France, France.

Saturday 26th of February 1977

26-year-old David Francis is tortured to death by serial killer Robert Maudsley aka The Brain Eater in Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, Berkshire, United Kingdom.

Maudsley and another resident, David Cheeseman, locked themselves in a cell with convicted child molester Francis and tortured him to death over a period of nine hours.

Sunday 26th of February 1984

21-year-old Rosario Teresa Gonzales aka Chary is presumably abducted and killed by serial killer Christopher Wilder aka The Beauty Queen Killer in Grand Prix Race Track, Miami, Florida, United States.

Wednesday 26th of February 1986

50-year-old Serial killer Daniel Camargo Barbosa aka The Beast of Ecuador aka The Monster of Charquito is arrested only a few minutes after he had murdered a 9-year-old girl named Elizabeth in Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador.

Barbosa was charged with the rape, mutilation and murder of 71 women in 15 months after he escaped from Gorgona prison in Colombia in November 1984.

Thursday 26th of February 1987

Serial poisoner Audrey Marie Hilley dies of a heart attack at the age of 54 in Anniston, Alabama, United States.

Hilley escaped from prison and had been crawling around in the woods for four days of frequent rain and numb from temperatures dropping to the low 30s. She was taken to a local hospital and underwent emergency treatment for hypothermia.

Tuesday 26th of February 1991

Murderer Lawrence Lee Buxton is executed by lethal injection at the age of 39 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Thursday 26th of February 1998

Psychiatric patient and artist Shirley Ardell Mason aka Sybil Isabel Dorsett dies of breast cancer at the age of 75 in Lexington, Kentucky, United States.

Saturday 26th of February 2000

Xenophobic serial bomber Franz Fuchs commits suicide by hanging in his cell at the age of 51 in Justizanstalt Graz-Karlau, Graz, Steiermark, Austria.

Fuchs was found hanged with the cable of his electric razor. How exactly a man without hands and under almost constant video surveillance could accomplish the manipulations required to convert an electric cable into a noose sufficiently robust for successful self-hanging was never properly explained.

Wednesday 26th of February 2003

Noise music band Club Moral play their 93rd concert on the occasion of the 'Synesthetics' exhibition in Cultuurcentrum, Minderbroedersgang 5, Mechelen, Antwerpen, Belgium.

Tuesday 26th of February 2013

James Chance and Les Contortions playing live in Magasin 4, Avenue du Port, 51b, Brussel, Belgium.

Monday 26th of February 2024

Murderer Nazar Mohammad is executed by shot dead by the relatives of his victims in Sheberghān, Jowzjan Province, Afghanistan.

Muhammad had been found guilty of a knife murder he committed in January 2022. The brother of the murdered man shot Muhammad five times with a rifle.