What happened on 26 May?

9 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1521 Fall of Tenochtitlan Cortés and Tlaxcalan allies besiege and capture the Aztec capital after 75 days; smallpox epidemic decimates the defenders.
2. 1940 Dunkirk evacuation British and French troops are evacuated from Dunkirk beaches; survival rather than defeat.
3. 1733 John Kay's flying shuttle Doubled hand-weaver productivity; helped trigger demand for mechanised spinning.
4. 2014 Premiership of Narendra Modi Demonetisation, the goods and services tax, the revocation of Kashmir's special status and a decade of BJP dominance.
5. 2014 Narendra Modi elected prime minister Hindu nationalist BJP wins a parliamentary majority; ends decades of coalition rule.
6. 1908 Discovery of oil in Iran First commercial oil discovery in the Middle East.
7. 1948 The National Party wins on apartheid D.F. Malan's Nationalists win a whites-only election on a single word — apartheid, 'apartness' — promising to entrench white supremacy in systematic law. They win fewer votes than
8. 1819 Bolívar's march over the flooded llanos In the rainy season — when no army moves — Bolívar leads 2,500 men through the drowned plains of the Orinoco and then over the freezing páramo of the Andes, losing a third of them,
9. 1762 Lord Bute's premiership George III's Scottish favourite makes peace with France and is driven out by a hostile press.