This page gathers what happened on this date across different years, in Kuwait first and then in the world. It grows every year: anything added later about 26 August finds its place here rather than on a new page.
In Kuwait
1974 — The decree establishing the Supreme Petroleum Council
Issued at Seif Palace on 8 Shaaban 1394 AH, corresponding to 26 August 1974. It was signed by Jaber Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah as deputy amir and crown prince, Saad Al Abdullah Al Salem Al Sabah as acting prime minister, and Abdulrahman Salem Al Ateeqi as minister of finance and oil.
A detail many people get wrong: the council is not a large body. The decree set its membership as the prime minister in the chair and four ministers only — finance and oil, foreign affairs, state for cabinet affairs, and commerce and industry. The secretariat is held by whoever the cabinet assigns.
Its task, as article two puts it: to set general policy for the petroleum wealth, to preserve it, and to develop the industries tied to it, with the aim of completing an integrated national petroleum industry. It meets at least four times a year, and a meeting is valid only with at least three members present, the chair among them.
The full text on the Ministry of Oil site.
1992 — The Security Council guarantees the inviolability of the Kuwait-Iraq border
At meeting 3108, the UN Security Council issued resolution 773. It welcomed the report of the boundary demarcation commission, and in its fourth paragraph the council affirmed its guarantee of the inviolability of the demarcated international boundary, and its decision to take all necessary measures to that end in accordance with the Charter.
The resolution urged the commission to take up the eastern sector of the border, which includes the maritime boundary, at its next session, and to demarcate it as soon as possible to complete its work. The text of the resolution.
In the world
1920 — American women’s right to vote takes effect
The date usually cited is 18 August, when Tennessee ratified the Nineteenth Amendment and became the thirty-sixth state. But the amendment did not become part of the constitution that day. It did so on 26 August, when US secretary of state Bainbridge Colby formally certified the ratifications. The US National Archives.
1910 — Mother Teresa is born in Skopje
She was born in Skopje, the youngest child of Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu, and baptised Gonxha Agnes. Her biography on the Vatican site.
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