Born in 1926

Turns 100 in 2026 · 100th birthday gifts

100th birthday gifts for someone born in 1926

Front Page: Canada edition. The year is filled in; add their name in the editor. “Your name” is a placeholder. Light news is selected. A new keepsake, not an original newspaper.

BACK TO 1926 · Canada

A little history to go with their gift.

John Logie Baird demonstrated television in Soho, Gertrude Ederle crossed the English Channel, and Route 66 took shape in the United States. These records capture a year when new ways to see, travel and test human endurance drew public attention.

What happened in 1926?

Balfour Report advances dominion autonomy

The Balfour Report led to recognition of dominion autonomy and changed the Governor General's relationship to Britain.

House of Commons of Canada

Germany and Soviet Russia renew ties

Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Berlin on 24 April, renewing neutrality commitments and complicating the diplomatic map of interwar Europe.

The Avalon Project, Yale Law School · German Historical Museum

Jean Perrin receives the physics Nobel

Jean Baptiste Perrin won the 1926 Nobel Prize in Physics for work on the discontinuous structure of matter and sedimentation equilibria.

Nobel Prize

The Svedberg measures colloidal particles

The Svedberg received the 1926 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on dispersed systems and the development of the ultracentrifuge.

Nobel Prize · Nobel Prize

Firsts and new ideas

Baird demonstrates television in London

John Logie Baird gave a public demonstration of working television in London on January 26, 1926.

Science Museum Group · Science Museum Group

Goddard launches the liquid-fueled rocket

Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts, on 16 March 1926, opening a new chapter in rocketry.

NASA · NASA

Number ones and music in 1926

Chart positions belong to the country and chart named in each record.

Someone to Watch Over Me debuts

The Gershwins' intimate ballad emerged with Oh, Kay! in New York during the 1926 Broadway season and soon travelled beyond the stage.

Library of Congress · The Morgan Library & Museum

Bye Bye Blackbird enters print

Ray Henderson and Mort Dixon's Bye Bye Blackbird was published by Jerome H. Remick in New York in 1926 for voice and piano.

Levy Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University

Prices and everyday money in 1926

Canada figures in the money of the time. Units and sources matter: these are not today's prices.

Recorded prices and earnings, 1926
Item or measureThenUnit and source
Stamp2¢first ounce
Dominion Bureau of Statistics
Sugar (city average)$0.0791 lb
Statistics Canada
Milk (city average)$0.121 quart
Statistics Canada
Eggs (60-city average)46.6¢dozen
Statistics Canada

Planning the birthday

Someone born in 1926 turns 100 in 2026. Before their birthday they are one year younger. Choose the birth year for the print; add the full date in the editor if you know it.

See milestone birthdays this year