26 June: On this day in history

On 5 March, around 60,000 Roman troops marched out of Antioch (near modern-day Antakya in Turkey), led by the emperor himself. At first everything went smoothly, and by mid-May Julian had crossed the Tigris and was outside the Persian capital, Ctesiphon. But then things began to go wrong. Harassed almost daily by Persian attacks, Julian ordered his army to retreat north, and at a minor engagement on 26 June, the worst happened. Julian had thrown himself into the fray, wrote Ammianus Marcellinus, a historian on the emperor’s military staff, “when suddenly a cavalry spear, grazing the skin of his arm, pierced his side and fixed itself in the bottom of his liver”.

The wound did not at first seem serious; Julian’s personal doctor washed it with wine, then tried to stitch up the organs. But the bleeding continued, and it became obvious that the emperor was failing. As he lay dying, wrote Ammianus, Julian “entered into an intricate discussion with the philosophers Maximus and Priscus on the sublime nature of the soul”.

This seems a bit unlikely. It was inevitable that the last non-Christian emperor would get short shrift from Christian writers, so Ammianus, a fellow pagan, was probably gilding the lily. “At last,” the historian went on, “the swelling of his veins began to choke his breath and, having drank some cold water, which he had asked for, he expired quietly about midnight, in the 31st year of his age.” | Written by Dominic Sandbrook

26 June 1409

In a failed bid to end the Great Schism of the western church, the Council of Pisa deposes popes Gregory XII of Rome and Benedict XIII of Avignon and elects Cardinal Peter Philarghi as pope. He assumes the title Alexander V.

26 June 1541: Francis Pizarro meets a bloody end over dinner

The ageing conquistador’s brutal past finally catches up with him

Francisco Pizarro died as he had lived, sword in hand. Pizarro, who had defied the odds to bring down the Incas and conquer modern-day Peru for the Spanish, was almost 70 years old. As governor of New Castile (as Peru was then named), he had spent years locked in a bitter feud with a rival conquistador, Diego de Almagro. In 1538 Pizarro had had Almagro executed. But now the latter’s son – also Diego – wanted revenge.

Pizarro was dining in his palace in Lima when Almagro burst in with about 20 armed supporters. Most of the old man’s guests fled, but Pizarro stood his ground, reaching for his sword from where it hung on the wall. According to one account, he struck down two would-be assassins and ran a third through. While he struggled to draw out his sword, however, Almagro’s men stabbed him in the throat. Lying on the palace floor, Pizarro shouted: “Jesus!” The last thing he ever did was to draw a cross on the ground with his own blood and kiss it. The most ruthless conquistador of the age was dead.

Pizarro’s body was buried in Lima Cathedral, but it was not until 1977 that building workers found a lead box, bearing the inscription: “Here is the head of Don Francisco Pizarro Demarkes, Don Francisco Pizarro who discovered Peru and presented it to the crown of Castile.” Forensic scientists reported that the skull was broken by numerous violent blows – perhaps a fitting end for a man steeped in violence. | Written by Dominic Sandbrook

26 June 1830

Following the death of his brother, King George IV, the 64-year-old Duke of Clarence ascended to the throne as King William IV.

26 June 1912

Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was first performed at the Vienna Festival by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Bruno Walter. Mahler never heard the symphony being performed for he had died in the May of the previous year.

26 June 1963

US president John F Kennedy proclaimed American solidarity with the citizens of West Berlin in his ‘ich bin ein Berliner’ speech, which he gave on the steps of Berlin’s Rathaus Schöneberg.

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