Today in History: On this day: American women won the right to vote in 1920

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 26:

1920 – American women won the right to vote when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified.

1972 – The English adventurer Sir Francis Chichester, who in 1966-67 became the first person to sail solo around the world rounding the two great capes, died.

1974 – Charles Lindbergh, the American aviator who made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight in 1927, died.

1993 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a friendship treaty with the Czech Republic after condemning the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.

1997 – South Africa’s last white president, F.W. de Klerk, announced he was quitting as leader of the opposition National Party.

1998 – World’s first bionic arm fitted and tested in Edinburgh.

2003 – Rwanda’s electoral commission announced that incumbent president Paul Kagame had won the first presidential election since 1994. The opposition disputed the result.

2004 – Cuba cut diplomatic ties with Panama after its outgoing president, Mireya Moscoso, pardoned four Cuban exiles who had plotted to kill President Fidel Castro in 2000.

2005 – Former Hutu rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza became Burundi’s president with a pledge to honour the peace accord that brought him to power and ended a 12-year civil war.

2005 – Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia breaks world record in men’s 10,000m race.

2014 – Ceasefire takes effect between Gaza and Israel after 50 days of combat.